


To A Broken Throne

by frozenbeans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Amortentia, Curse-Breaker, Ethically questionable Hermione, F/M, Felix Felicis, Felix Felicis! Tom, Head Boy Tom Riddle, Hogwarts 1943, M/M, Multi, Murder, Portrayals of 'Casual Homophobia', Portrayals of Misogynistic views, Professor Hermione Granger, Pureblood Supremacy, Slug Party, The Chamber Of Secrets, Unethical Behaviour, Unforgiveable Curses, Veritaserum, dark themes, inappropriate relationships, no time travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-10-22 16:53:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17666429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frozenbeans/pseuds/frozenbeans
Summary: It seems that the entirety of the castle has committed her name to memory by the time Tom cares to ask for it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!! Welcome to Not Renatus!!
> 
> So, ya know that Peter Pan AU I promised?
> 
> This isn't it!! 
> 
> This is some completely different thing I wrote last night because I am terribly nostalgic for Hogwarts, and because I figured that, for the sake of equality, I'd quite like to have a shot at writing a Professor Granger, this time round! 
> 
> Tempting as writing a good old time travel fic is, in this AU (HEAVY emphasis on the AU bit here, pals) Hermione Granger simply an especially bright student who attended Hogwarts before Tom did. 
> 
> Couple of disclaimers: 
> 
> 1\. Please don't panic, this is not the start of another ridiculously lengthy fic!! I'm just gauging interest at this point, but if I do continue, it'll be finished in 5 chapters and cover the school year of 1943 - the year that Tom Riddle took it upon himself to open the Chamber of Secrets for the first time. For convenience, I've just gone ahead and decided this was his sixth year, and that he is Head Boy - if this is inaccurate, my apologies, but please bear with it! 
> 
> 2\. There are some seriously fantastic fics out there featuring, first, Tom's school days with his friends, and second, Professor Granger. As a general disclaimer, I do not intend to in any way copy any of the plot-points, characters, etc of other authors, and I have deliberately avoided looking at fics with similar descriptions to try to avoid doing so. If there is some resemblance, I apologise profusely, and please do let me know!
> 
> 3\. I don't wanna mislead anyone- this fic is not looking to be super original. I kinda arrived here long after all the classic tropes were being written- e.g. the Slug Party trope!! - and I absolutely intend to indulge in them here.

* * *

 

1943

* * *

 

It seems that the entirety of the castle has committed her name to memory by the time Tom cares to ask for it.

The young woman from this afternoon; the one in the red coat who walked the halls with her wand drawn, even as Headmaster Dippet chatted idly, his hand, courteous, at her elbow, or so he had heard, and he had called her ‘ _Professor’_.

She had not been at dinner, and so those who had caught a glimpse, heard a whisper, took it upon themselves to spread word of the unfamiliar witch.

This, as far as Tom is concerned, speaks less to her noteworthy character and more to the vapid interests of his peers: the uninspired tendency of the girls indulge in gossip, no matter how mundane the nature; the hunger with which the boys would welcome the introduction of _any_ Professor of the fairer sex more appealing than the withering Merrythought, the too round, too motherly Bathsheda Babbling.

Not that she is only a Professor.

Hermione Granger, a friend of Slughorn’s – yes, that had been how Lestrange had put it; though any elaboration upon precisely what business she was to have at Hogwarts is lost to his most unfortunate inability to think without the firm guidance of the sorry thing tucked, at present, between his legs.

“Fit, that one. I saw her with Dippet, getting the grand tour of the place this morning. Tiny thing. I’d have her well,” he grunts, a drop of firewhisky clinging to his lip even as he fastens the flask he keeps stowed under his robes, even in the morning classes. Tom crinkles his nose in distaste at the smell, a sickly sort of sweet, with a bitter edge. “Teach _her_ a lesson, if you take my meaning.”

Rosier laughs, too loud.

Evan Rosier does little else- a consequence of a terrible affliction that Tom terms _genetic idiocy_.

Still, Lestrange looks rather pleased with himself for it.

“What is it that you propose to teach _her_?” Malfoy snorts.

Unlike Rosier, his amusement stems not from admiration.

His legs stretch out over the arm of the deep leather lounge that he shares with Rosier and Lestrange, as an enchanted cloth, courtesy of his mother, tends to his shoes all on its own, though not unburdened by his critical eye.

Tom, as fortune would have it, has his lounge to himself.

It is the closest to the fire, which is just as well.

It is not that Tom is cold.

He merely appreciates the fierce bright of the flames, the steady hum of crackling kindling punctuating his thoughts.

They are the last in the Common Room, tonight.

Not because it is terribly late, but because Lestrange has quite scared the rest of them off.

What he lacks in the company he offers, he makes up in his intimidation of first years- sixth years, even.

“Tell us. I’m simply _intrigued_.”

“What’s that sposed to mean, Abraxas?” Roland says cautiously, unsure as yet whether he must defend himself or not, thick brows crowding as they pull together across his forehead.

Malfoy opens his mouth-

But Tom is quite certain he’s not the patience to hear this particular conversation play out.

 “It means, Roland, that he is sceptical about your prowess in the bedroom. Naturally,” he says lazily.

Lestrange’s face, predictably, turns angry red.

“Is he now?” he demands, turning on Malfoy. “You’re welcome to ask Betty Greengrass. Patricia Crabbe, Margaret-”

“Graduate interviews are _next_ year, Roland. There’s no need to list your - accomplishments,” Tom says coolly.

 A grin turns Malfoy’s thin mouth upward at that, even as Rosier barks out laughing, this time, as Lestrange’s expense.

If nothing else can be said for Rosier, it is that he takes delight in laughing at everybody equally.

“Apparently there is,” Lestrange says irritably. “If you’re taking the piss-”

“I don’t see why my opinion should matter to you. It’s the good Professor you should be bragging to,” Malfoy drawls, now. “Accept my best wishes, truly. If you manage to convince a married Professor to shag you, I’ll forfeit my inheritance to you when grandfather dies.”  

Abraxas’ standard promise, wherever a bet arises.

Standard, because it piques the interest of the other party without failure on every occasion.

Because he is not such a fool that he will ever presume to enter into a bet which he might stand to lose.

“You’re on,” Lestrange says, barely attempting to conceal the hunger in his voice, though Tom would wager the fortune would scarcely make a difference to him, given his own family’s considerable estate.

Lestrange, he has observed, does not want things because he needs them, would benefit from them.

He simply takes pleasure, pride, in _having_ things, with no accounting for their value- hence the tediously long list of girls who have had the bad taste, or fortune, to crawl into the proverbial bed, and physical broom cupboard, with Roland Lestrange.

“How do you know she’s married?” Rosier says, curious.

“I know that she is a graduated woman,” Malfoy sniffs, feet swinging down, now, and he examines the polished surface of his right shoe, first. “And that she is not a beast to behold, if word is to be believed. If she’s not married-”

“What, you’ll give _her_ your inheritance, now?” Lestrange scoffs. “That’s soon to be mine, and I’ll thank you to remember it.”

Malfoy rolls his eyes, derisive.

“I was going to say, if she’s not married, I’d wager she’s _defective_. Merlin help you if you still want to shag her, then,” he says calmly.

“Is Granger her husband’s name, then? I don’t know it,” Rosier says, wrinkling his nose. “Sounds a bit Muggle, doesn’t it?”

At that, Lestrange’s expression sours measurably.

_Isn’t that a Muggle name?_

He’d said it when he had met Tom, first year.

He had not waited for Tom to approach him, even.

He took it upon himself to interrogate all those with dubious surnames – a tradition that he still observes, even five years later.

But he had been sorry, with Tom.

He had learned to be.

“Trust Dippet to let a Mudblood teach,” he grumbles. “Aren’t they too busy hiding from Grindelwald, anyway?”

“Yes, but she wouldn’t be one, would she, if it was her _husband_ -” Rosier insists, oblivious, it seems, to the heated anger rolling off the rather built boy beside him.

“ _Fascinating_ ,” Tom says terse, though he is smiling, he makes sure of it. “Truly. But I don’t quite understand. You said that she is a friend of Professor Slughorn’s?”

Lestrange nods shortly, makes for another swig of his flask-

Tom’s fingers tense over the leather of the couch in his efforts to restrain himself from casting the bloody thing spinning across the room.  

“’Swhat Dippet was saying,” he shrugs. “Said Slughorn was real bloody delighted she’s finally agreed to come and that. Sounds like a big deal, she does.”

“If Slughorn asked for her, she might be,” Tom murmurs.

He has seen Slughorn’s shelf of note-worthy students with enough frequency to know that he is not wrong, on that account.

And that must mean that she isn’t.

A Mudblood, that is.

He frowns.

Tom does not care much for surprises, and less for change.

He has curated Hogwarts as he knows it to his liking slowly, with caution, and he had rather expected to enjoy the fruits of it, now that the work is done.

Now that he is Head Boy, with Dippet doting on him along with the rest of his Professors, his classmates.

Now that  his sorry story is forgotten, his intelligence dignified with an abundance of Outstandings, the gasps and giggles of girls younger and older, the grunts of boys pretending not to be impressed- _intimidated_ , but it shows in their faces, for they have not the sense to guard them.

His name, his father’s, ignored, because he has shown them that it does not _matter;_ has shown them that it is magic in his veins, magic, not mud, and they don’t dare to challenge him, not after second year, with the chimera, the python writhing from its lion back, and it could not be satiated, tamed, not until him-

Of course, that was before he knew what he does, now.

Knew what it means, that his middle name is _Marvolo._

Knew of the Gaunts, their bloodline, who it traces back to.

There’s more to do, yet, to prove, more than ever.

There is a world to prove wrong, magic, _proper_ magic, more than the cheap tricks they see fit to teach here, to be mastered, so that Tom is not only the best in his year, the best in his school.

There is, most pressingly, a Chamber to find, a secret one, Slytherin’s own-

And so it is only natural that Tom is most ardently unimpressed with the prospect of a shift in staff at this moment.

Still, a young woman with a Muggle’s surname sticking out like _lumos_ in the dark will hardly cause him any material disruption.

“Tom?”

A hand on his shoulder, cold, and only fleeting.

It is Malfoy, standing, now.

The couch, inhabited, only a moment ago, by he, Rosier and Lestrange, sits empty, now.

“Abraxas,” he clears his throat, brows arched.

The other boy’s lip is curled, eyes a startling kind of blue.

_Pure-_

Yes, that is the word.

Pure, like his hair, more silver than blond, marking him a Malfoy.

Marking him magic.

Tom is not jealous.

He’s a mark of his own.

After all, a _Muggle_ could never dream to be a Parselmouth.

“They’ve gone to bed,” Malfoy says, waving his arm by way of explanation. He tilts his head. “You’re planning something.”

“Oh?”

Tom straightens where he sits, head leaning to one side, mirroring Abraxas.

“Professor Granger. Is she going to be a problem?” Malfoy asks, delicate.

Tom does not answer right away.

For a moment, he only surveys him.

Abraxas Malfoy does not suffer from the same idiocy that afflicts Rosier, Lestrange.

Mostly, Tom is glad for it.

Still, it bothers him to no end that he presumes to know what Tom is thinking- to share in his plans as though they are equally his own.

He shrugs.

“I expect so. It seems we’re in danger of watching Lestrange drool over her all year.”  

Incomplete, of course, but it is not a lie.

He thinks that is why Malfoy believes him.

* * *

 

“Come, come- Tom, my boy, oh, wonderful!”

Professor Slughorn beckons him into the room rather like a doting owner might a dog, and, like a good one, Tom obliges, his head tilted up and teeth showing in a wide smile that he has learned comes across as startlingly genuine.

“It’s good to be back, Professor. I do hope you enjoyed your holiday. Were the pyramids as grand as you’d hoped?”

Slughorn’s cheeks are rosy, beedy eyes glittering, as he claps Tom amicably over the shoulder.

“Grander, Tom, grander!” he says merrily. “Had a wonderful tour, guided by Sir Pervius Quinn himself – brilliant man, developed the counter-spell to disarm re-enlivened mummies. I must show you the pictures, if you will indulge me – after class, of course- ah, Mr Malfoy, good to see you! Evan, Roland,” he nods as the other boys file in behind Tom, flashing smiles where their names are called. “Longbottom, good to see you- Black! Ah, Hagrid, looking well I see, looking well. Miss Warren! Charmed.”

Tom studies the dungeon, as the Professor remains preoccupied with his rather painfully enthusiastic greetings.

The chestnut desks, sets of two, line the room, still, cupboards sunk into the walls almost spilling with the broadest sorts of ingredients, ranging from perfectly common to rare, as Slughorn pointed out on a yearly basis.

It is distinctly lacking in any unfamiliar, red-coated woman, which is rather vexing.

As yet, Tom’s no idea which subject it is that Professor Granger will be taking, and he’s most anxious to discover it-

As, it seems, is the rest of the year, if the mutterings live in the hall at breakfast are anything to go by.

“I heard she’s not a Professor at all,”  Flint had grinned heartily over his tea. “Heard she’s Slughorn’s lover.”

“Don’t be foul,” Nott had said at once. “ _I_ think she’s his daughter.”

“And who is to say that the lady is not both?” Malfoy had said, earning a look of wonderment, pride, from Lestrange.

“Hello, Tom.”

A soft voice, a throaty one, and Tom casts his eyes over his shoulder to find its source.

Lucretia Black smiles with half of her mouth- more a smirk than a grin, and her eyes are hooded, as she meets his, her head dipped so that she is glancing upward at him- as though it had been he who had called to her, caught _her_ off-guard.

 “Miss Black,” Tom inclines his head, courtesy compelling him to meet her smile with his own.

“Good holiday?”

She is leaning over his usual desk now, expectant, as he sets his satchel down upon it, retrieves his parchment.

She sits at the back of class, and has, religiously, since they were eleven, that she might pass the lesson whispering under her breath with Florence Nott-

About _him_ , of course, not that either of the pair of them were remotely aware of precisely how easily sound carries from the back to the front, more’s the pity.

“Fine, thank you.”

He should ask after her own, though the prospect of having to hear her analyse the manner in which he asked her with Nott for the next hour is enough to deter him, if only for a moment.

“Lucretia.”

It is Lestrange, eyes bright, narrowed – a look that Tom, and every woman in Slytherin, it seems, knows too regrettably well.

Tom is aggressively assured, not only by Lestrange, but Malfoy, Rosier, as well, that Lucretia Black is rather beautiful.

Something about the long fall of her hair down her back, the shape of her face, her mouth, and, in recent times, her chest.

Still, how anybody who remains catastrophically unable to brew a simple Confusing Concoction by fifth year might be worth gawking at is beyond Tom.

“What’ve you been up to, eh? Unsupervised over the holidays? All bad, I hope,” Lestrange is saying, even as Tom busies himself with his things, rests his quill by a fresh pot of ink.  

Lucretia’s laugh is tinkling, pretty-

Like Tom’s, when his Professors see fit to try for humour in the classroom.

Calculated, meant for _them_.

“Why, you insult me, Roland. I was just telling Tom it’s been most boring, actually.”

She wasn’t, of course, but that is neither here or there.

“Was it, love?”

Now Lestrange, too, is leaning, ever bothersome, over Tom’s desk, even as Malfoy takes his usual place beside him, murmuring a greeting to the girl as he does, ever courteous.

Black casts her eyes, almost reproachful, toward Tom once more before she concerns herself with Lestrange’s.

Lestrange is not entirely unappealing to women, despite Malfoy and Rosier’s jokes that he owes his list of bedfellows to the Imperius Curse, and the Imperius Curse alone.

His eyes are a mild sort of green, hair unruly, not unclean, and his arms are a testament to his competency as a Beater.

“Indeed. If the rest of the year is to follow suit I fear I may die of it.”

“Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Lestrange winks, now, sending Black giggling once more –

“Alright, then!”

It is Slughorn, about, it seems, to begin the lessen, and not a moment too soon.  

“If you’ll take your seats- Miss Black, Mr Lestrange, thank you-”

Rosier beckons Lestrange, eager, to their seats behind Tom and Malfoy, though Lestrange only reluctantly obliges.

He claps his hands over his rounded belly, eyeing them all with the enthusiasm of a man who earnestly enjoys what he is teaching.

“Now! Haven’t we all, at one time or another, wanted to be somebody that we’re not, hm?” he poses, hands spread open wide, as though he is speaking to a crowd of thousands, and not, for the most part, an indifferent and altogether disenchanted cluster of adolescents who still think that monkshood and wolfsbane are wildly different plants.

“Who would like to hazard a guess as to which potion might allow one to do just that? To stand in the shoes of another, as it were, hm?”

Tom doesn’t quite know why he bothers to raise his hand in Slughorn’s.

Nobody else does, save for the occasional bold Ravenclaw, and they will never be called upon where he is an alternative.

Still, Slughorn beams at him.

“Tom! Fire away, my boy, fire away!”

“Polyjuice Potion, Sir,” he says, always with this air of modest hesitation, as though he is not quite sure of the answer, for he has found that this tends to earn all the more positive a response.

Not even a Professor likes a know-it-all.

At least, not when they behave like one.

“Excellent,” Slughorn says. “Ten points to Slytherin, Tom! Now, to brew Polyjuice Potion is no easy task. It requires patience. Who can tell me why?- yes, Tom?”

“Because, if I’m not mistaken, Professor, the potion takes approximately a month to properly brew?”

Or, three weeks and four days, as he learned in his fourth year when he found himself pressed upon with the urgent desire to inspect Dippet’s office unburdened by suspicious eyes.

“Mistaken you’re not- another ten points there, son. Goodness, Slytherin is the House to beat, eh? Now, you’ll note I’ve taken the liberty of supplying each table with a list of ingredients, and -ah, but a Gryffindor! Yes, Mr Hagrid- something to add, perhaps? Make this a fairer fight, eh?” Slughorn peers, eager, at the frankly alarming form of Reubeus Hagrid, a boy with shaggy hair, an ungroomed beard in the making, and speech so unsophisticated as to remind him of Wool’s Orphanage, much to his distinct distaste.

Malfoy’s elbow digs, light, inconspicuous, into his side, and he lifts his eyebrows, pointed, at Tom, a smirk adorning his features, and Tom responds in kind.

Behind them, Rosier snorts.

“Excuse me, Professor,” the boy says thickly, “yer suggesting we make a Polyjuice Potion in class, Sir?”

“I can’t imagine why not,” Slughorn says robustly. “It is ambitious, to be sure, but I’ve every confidence that you’re all more than capable-”

“S’not _tha’,_ Sir,” Hagrid cuts him off, apparently agitated, and Tom shifts in his seat, that he might better observe this rather unexpected, though not entirely unwelcome, interruption. “It’s only- it says ye need Bicorn horn.”

“Naturally,” Tom answers before Slughorn does, brow quirked in the man-boy’s direction. “Powdered. Without it, only your scent would change, and not your physicality.”

Hagrid swallows.

“Bicorns are rare creatures, they are,” he says, a loud sort of mumble, and he is looking at his desk. He sits, Tom notes, alone; the only one in the class, and he is almost envious. “Hunted for potions, like these.”

“Indeed,” Slughorn says excitedly. “Exceedingly rare, truly, we are fortunate to have a supply, here at Hogwarts. We get a golly good price for it, we do, courtesy of Dippet’s connections- not, of course, that this is to be advertised.”

“But Sir,” Hagrid says, almost desperately, and Tom narrows his eyes, not yet sure of whether this little outburst of his is entertaining or irritating. “They can’ survive withou’ their horns. It’s cruel business it is, Sir, what these dealers leave ‘em to.”

“You bleeding heart,” Lestrange’s grin shows all his teeth. “Don’t speak too loudly. Grindelwald’s got ears everywhere, you know. What’s next? Obliviatin’ Muggles is _cruel, Sir_?” he slides into the other boy’s thick accent rather well, earning whooping laughter from Rosier and the soft vindication of Black and Nott, first.

Then, as though accepting, upon brief consideration, an invitation, the rest of the room joins in, Malfoy shaking his head, grinning, beside Tom.

“ _Why can’ they vote in our elections, Sir_?” Lestrange continues, emboldened.

“Now, now, Roland,” Slughorn says good-naturedly, only half bothering to hide his own amusement. “No need for such nonsense.”

“On the contrary, Horace,” somebody says- a girl, woman, and she is gently spoken, but firm, “I think the boy asks a rather fascinating question.”

Tom jerks his head, reflexively, toward the door, for that is where her voice is coming from-

He knows, after all, that it must be hers, though any doubt he might have is relieved when Slughorn, ever helpfully, claps his hands together in delight.

“Oh, wonderful, wonderful, I had feared you would not make it, dear- everyone, please meet Professor Hermione Granger!”

* * *

 

The light in the dungeons is fairly dismal, though flickering candles, enchanted by the ceiling, do offer some enlightenment, here and there, upon the woman at the door.

Tom takes the opportunity that they afford him to survey her.

Thin brows, arched, as though bracing themselves.

A full mouth, even though it is pressed together in a tight sort of line.

An angular face, deceptively young, as though it might equally belong to an eighteen year old girl as a twenty-eight year old woman, and eyes that appear to not require, in the slightest, the assistance of the candlelight to glint, all on their own.

Lestrange had not been wrong, either – she is a slight creature, the doorframe that frames her towering about her form, though she appears steady, feet planted surely on the ground.

She is wearing what appears to be a modest utility suit; a faint sort of blue, and a white shirt, buttoned to its collar, reveals itself beneath her jacket.

Her hair shows itself in a similar fashion, an unruly tangle or so having escaped a rather tight bun.

A professional woman, albeit an unconventionally young one, hence Lestrange’s fixation.

“Thank you, Horace,” she says briskly, “for that introduction.”

Slughorn grasps her elbow in greeting as she meets him at the head of the room, her palm resting on his for a moment before she turns to them, acknowledging, he senses, somewhat reluctantly, the curious horde of students who have been wondering after her since she had been sighted with Dippet about the castle yesterday afternoon.

“A pleasure, I’m sure.” She clears her throat, eyes flitting over them, and it is disconcerting, because she looks at them, each of them, only for a moment – first Nott, then Longbottom, Hagrid- in the same manner that Tom might, when he must assess what kind of person somebody is quickly. “I understand there is some ambiguity amongst you regarding what role I am to occupy here at Hogwarts. Rest easy knowing that I am by no means here to rob you of your Potions Professor. I have merely been asked to observe and assist for a short period of time- to act as an Associate Professor, so to speak.”  

She does not seem particularly nervous, as Tom anticipated she might.

That tells him that she is accustomed to addressing people- and what is more, perhaps, issuing instruction, command.

She is, all at once, oddly tense, her shoulders set firm, eyes never lingering, as though she is anticipating some interruption, _attack_ , but oblivious of the ‘when’ and the ‘where’.

Perhaps she is a Mudblood after all.

Not that it terribly matters.

That Slughorn is to remain lets Tom breathe easy.

The man, after all, is more taken with Tom than any other, and it would be more than a pity for his efforts in cultivating his fixation were thrown to waste by this highly-strung newcomer.

“Nonsense,” Slughorn bursts. “You know more about all this business than I, my dear-”

“Hermione,” the Professor mutters, some small amount of distaste crinkling her forehead.

“Quite right, quite right,” Slughorn says, not remotely put off. “We are fortunate indeed to have Miss Granger assist. Works in the Ministry – highly classified work, by nature, of course – in the business of breaking curses. Most recently, she’s been commended by the Magical Congress of the United States of America for her splendid efforts in liberating victims of Gellert Grindelwald from-”

There it is, then.

The reason that Slughorn wanted her- and it is a _damned_ good one.

_Curse-breaker._

And Merlin, if she is countering _Grindelwald_ -

Tom leans forward, studies her, once more, because he sees, now, that it is her eyes that show her age, experience.

Her eyes, and hands, littered, he now sees, with a thousand of the most peculiar marks, white and rippling, jagged shapes – _scars,_ and he knows that he was right.

Professor Granger is not nervous.

Only a woman of habit, and her life demanded that she make a habit of exercising vigilance.

And it is-

_Exhilarating._

Hopeful, even, to entertain, at last, the idea that he might stand to learn something real from a Hogwarts Professor, something that the books cannot tell him.

“ _Highly classified_ ,” Professor Granger says, her alarm evident. “Please, Professor.”

But the damage is quite done at this point.

“Curse-breaker?” Malfoy is murmuring, eyes wide, and he is not the only one.

The words ripple through them, rumbling low, hushed, but not enough as to go unnoticed.

“If you’re a Curse-Breaker, why are you teaching _Potions_?” Black sniffs, a sensible question, albeit a rude one.

“Because I am good at potions, and Professor Slughorn has asked me to,” is her response, simple and unfettered by any attempts at modesty, nor at justifying her competence.

In Tom’s experience, the second means either that she need not, or she cannot, and nothing in between.

“You’re ‘good at potions’?” Nott says, evidently unsatisfied with the mere statement. “Have you ever made a Polyjuice Potion before? Since school, even? How old are you anyway?”

"We don't ask that of a lady, Florence," Lestrange says at once, sending, Tom is certain, a simpering sort of smile Professor Granger's way - a wink, if she is particularly unfortunate. 

The Professor has the good sense to ignore him, in any case. 

“Ah, _Polyjuice_ \- that’s today, Professor?” she casts her eyes to Slughorn to catch his nod in confirmation. “Tell me, what is your name?”

Tom can hear the displeasure in Florence Nott’s tone as she gives it.

“And this is a sixth year class, is that right?”

“Yes,” the girl says tersely.

Professor Granger’s smile is tight.

“Thank you, Florence. To answer your questions, I am twenty-three years old. I’m afraid I’ve only brewed a Polyjuice Potion a handful of times since I first did in my second year.”

Tom _coughs,_ the harsh sound masked only by the sharp inhales that echo one another across the room, Lestrange’s low whistle humming over the rest.

“Second year?” Lestrange bursts. “Blimey, Miss.”

The Professor does not smile, though her cheeks are flushed, as though she would like to.

She’s bloody lying, _must_ be lying-

What business does a _twelve year old_ have brewing Polyjuice Potion, in any case?

 “In the meantime, I have disrupted your lesson for far too long. Professor Slughorn?”

“Ah, yes,” Slughorn says, rubbing his hands together, somewhat hesitant. “We seem to have hit something of a snag.”

“Oh?”

Professor Granger arches a single eyebrow, mild interest colouring her face.

“Indeed. Rubeus, why don’t you-” Slughorn gestures for the boy, who has promptly turned red as the House he disgraces with his presence, to continue.

He clears his throat.

“Righ’, uh. Hello, Professor Granger,” he says, sheepish. “I don’ wan’ trouble, ye understand. I just wonder if we couldn’t brew a potion that doesn’t call fer bicorn horns, Miss. There aren’ many of ‘em left, see.”

Laughter litters the room at that, though, at a harsh look from the young Professor, it fades as easily as it came.

“You’re quite right, Mr-?”

“Hagrid, Miss.”

“Hagrid.”

Professor Granger smiles.

It is nothing like the polite one that she had worn when she was speaking  Nott.

This one starts at the eyes, spread wide, crinkles her nose.

“The Bicorn are indeed an endangered species, and it’s not to be taken lightly. We must always consider the ingredients that we use, and whether the purpose that the potion will serve justifies the use of them,” she says, ever diplomatically. “What Mr Hagrid is advocating for, for those of you who aren’t so well-informed as your classmate,” she gives Lestrange a rather pointed look, “is a boycott. Boycotts are effective, when utilised properly. Unfortunately for the bicorn, and for us, Mr Hagrid, the Polyjuice Potion is on the Ministry’s Curriculum – it is something that every student is obliged to learn, because it is complex and one of the best ways to assess your abilities at the OWL level. In that sense, I’m afraid our hands are somewhat tied.”

Hagrid, deflated, nods.

“That said,” Professor Granger says thoughtfully, “I’ve an idea. I’m sure you’ve already been made aware that, in the absence of powdered Bicorn horn, the potion will only allow the drinker to adopt the scent of their chosen subject, and not their physical form.”

No thanks to Professor Slughorn, but yes, Tom had kindly seen to it that they were so aware.

“Perhaps we might see how that works, in practice? Mr Hagrid,” she suggests, “would you be so kind as to brew your Polyjuice Potion _without_ the horn, for the benefit of the class?”

Her eyes are very bright, now, as are his- though where his well, wet, hers merely seem to wink without winking.

Oh, very _good_ \- placate the bleeding heart, let him keep his ethics, the reigns to his high horse.

He thinks that she is being kind to him.

Tom wonders if she thinks she is.

If she thinks herself cold, or warm, for making this ridiculous boy feel that his dear bicorns benefit, in any sense, from this little deal she’s proposing.

But it does not matter, because he will take it.

“I-” slow enough, but surely, Hagrid beams. “I would, Professor.”

“Excellent.” Professor Granger nods to Slughorn, now. “I trust that suits, Professor?”

“Oh!”

Slughorn is looking at her with eyes normally reserved for Tom alone, topped off with a toothy grin.

“It does, it does, aren’t you wonderful! Well then-”

Animated, he launches into an avid explanation of the preliminary steps to be taken –

“Anything, anything? Yes, Tom!”

“When preparing the lacewing flies, it is of upmost importance that they are not crushed or in any manner torn.”

“10 points to Slytherin, my boy- quite right, quite right-”

 Professor Granger sinks backward to perch at the chair set beside his desk, ankles neatly crossed, and, with the rest of them, she listens.

Takes _notes,_ even, pinching a quill from the table and pulling parchment from the air with her magic, though her lips do not move, and so she could not have cast _accio,_ transfigured one into existence, even-

Unless she had done so non-verbally.

Tom can perform non-verbal magic, of course.

Nothing overly impressive, not yet, but it is only a matter of time.

Magic is a muscle, after all, that will behave in precisely the manner he wishes, with sufficient training.

He wonders when Professor Granger saw first fit to train hers in the art.

_Second year –_

It’s atrocious.

Of course, if he’d the need to become somebody else in second year, he’d easily have been _capable_ -

But Malfoy is looking at him, now, expectant, for instructions.

“Three measures of Fluxweed,” he clears his throat. “Then two of knotgrass- _don’t_ stir it yet-”

“ _Alright_ ,” Malfoy says. “Merlin, you’re a pain-”

“Stirring prematurely, or Merlin help you, in the wrong direction, will have you turning into a fool when it doesn’t work in a month’s time,” Tom says icily, and Malfoy throws his hands up.

“Actually, while stirring in the incorrect direction can lessen the duration for which the potion will be effective, it won’t render it _useless_.”

Tom, and Abraxas, glance up, Malfoy, with a scoff, because, if he’s not quite mistaken, somebody has seen fit to correct Tom – which, as far as they are both concerned, ought to be something of an oxymoron.

Professor Granger is not looking at them, her quill itching at parchment, even as she addresses them.

“If you cannot rely on the potion to _last_ , I’d consider it quite useless, Professor,” Tom says, taken aback, but rather determined not to show it. “With all due respect.”

Apparently, just how much _respect_ he thinks is due is evident in his voice, for she does tilt her face upward, now.

“Polyjuice Potion is inherently unreliable in that sense,” she says smoothly. “It is why most witches and wizards will always brew a back-up. It can last anywhere between-”

“Ten minutes and twelve hours,” Tom finishes. “Perfectly brewed, it can reliably offer ten to twelve- I’d wager.”

“Would you?” Professor Granger says, thinking, it is clear in her face, and then- “tell me, when was it that you first brewed Polyjuice Potion?”

Behind them, Lestrange snorts, delighted.

“Busted,” he murmurs, but Tom pays him no mind, his eyes bearing into Hermione Granger’s head, even as her hair falls to cover her eyes, returns to her writings, apparently uninterested in actually obtaining at answer to the question she had posed him.

As though she already knows it.

As though it is enough that she had made sure she does.

* * *

 

Tom waits for the end of the hour before he stows his satchel over his shoulder, and, over the cluttering noise of ingredients, stowed away, chairs grating on the floor as they’re pulled back, Hagrid murmuring a thank you from the door, he approaches.

Because he is curious, now, irritated, something hot prickling in his chest.

Because he has personally introduced himself to every Professor and substitute to stand before him in a classroom, and he’s not to stop on account of _her._

She is still seated, and not looking at him; her eyes quite occupied, it seems, with the delicate scrawl of notes that she has written in the past half hour, teeth resting, idle, at her lower lip.

He clears his throat, smile in place and hand outstretched in invitation.

“Professor Granger,” he says, smooth, low in his throat, he knows that Professors prefer it that way. “A pleasure.”

If he has startled her, she does not show it.

She meets his eyes, only for a moment, before they venture downward, taking in his face, his form, until they fix on his chest.

“Head Boy,” she nods at the badge, all silver and green, he has fastened there. “I suppose it must be.”

A smile, however fleeting, graces her lips, her hand ghosting his own, extended one, just as briefly, though not so much so that he does not notice the cool sting of a ring-

Married, as Malfoy had wagered.

It seems he is to keep his fortune after all.

He conceals a dry smile with a bright one.

“Tom Riddle. And it was fourth year- the Polyjuice Potion, Professor,” he says, candid, as ever.  

Professor Granger surveys him for a moment, her lip curling, halfway entertained and disapproving.

“That’s impressive,” she allows.

“Not at all.” He dips his head. “ _Second year,_ on the other hand…”

He waits for her elaboration, her pride, to spill from her lips; reveal whether it is, in earnest, the truth, or whether she is lying.

“Yes, well.” Granger says, curt. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Riddle. I hope I do not offend you when I say that it is heartening to see that Hogwarts has broken its less than commendable tradition of awarding Head Boy to the failing Quidditch Captain.”

“You’ve found me out, Professor Granger,” he says disarmingly. “I’m afraid I’ve never been much the kind for Quidditch. I find study of magic to be far more invigorating.”

Granger looks at him for a lingering moment before her mouth parts, only slightly, and a laugh, only one, escapes it.

It is nothing like Lucretia Black's windchime laugh.

It is not nearly so unpleasant.

“Wise of you,” she says, amused.

“Ah, good! Yes, Miss Granger, this here is my finest student since- well, _yourself_!”

It is Slughorn, merrily slapping his hand over Tom’s back as he wedges between them.

 “You are Hogwarts alumni, Professor?”

It is surprising, certainly.

Because Tom has looked in the trophy rooms- searched for some sign of his father, over and over, but he recognises the names that are carved into gold there, in any case.

 _Hermione Granger_ is not one of those names.

“Of course,” she says. “It is the greatest school for witchcraft and wizardry in the world, after all.”

“ _Oho!”_ Slughorn exclaims. “I’ll be sure not to tell your husband of that particular comment.”

Professor Granger rolls her eyes, smile faint.

“You needn’t restrain yourself. I’ve made my position on the question quite clear, and he knows much better than to challenge me on it, Horace.”

“Hermione here- sorry, _Professor_ Granger- is married to _Viktor Krum_ , Tom,” Slughorn says impressively, waiting for Tom’s response.

Tom is to disappoint him, for he’s no bloody clue who this Krum fellow is.

Professor Granger laughs – the second time she has, and it has a sort of warmth to it- the kind that might be disarming, to somebody else.

“Nothing? You don’t know who Viktor Krum is?” Slughorn catches on, incredulous. “Tom, my boy-he’s only the greatest Seeker in the world! Bulgarian national? On the team all through Durmstrang? Anything, Tom?”

_Seeker._

Invariably, Tom’s lip twitches.

Because Professor Granger’s cheeks have warmed, pink, even in the dull light of the dungeon.

Because she is averting her eyes, focused too intently on her shoes.

“Well,” he says, quite entertained, now, “ _congratulations_ , Miss Granger. Tell me, was he Head Boy as well? Or did Durmstrang do away with the less than commendable tradition _before_ Hogwarts did?”  

She does not answer, but it is no matter, for he was not expecting one.

The scowl that twists her features in return serves as a perfectly adequate response in its own right.

* * *

 

Watching the boy at the front was rather a difficult task, given that he seemed quite intent on watching _her._

They were, all of them, watching her, of course- it is only to be expected, and they did not hide it.

The girl with the tight curls of blond, at the back, the pretty one, beside her.

The boy with green eyes, behind him- they ogled, as though she were an animal in the zoo.

But he –

He did it well.

His eyes never lingered a beat too long, flitting away at precisely the right moment with this air that suggested utter indifference, boredom, and if he had not come to her, now, she might have believed it.

He is handsome, in the classical sense.

Not so striking as the silvery one at his side- but the conventions of an appealing face are there:

A pleasant tone to his eyes, an angular face, chin, lips that might flatter any woman’s face, let alone a man, and lashes to match veiling his eyes.

Head Boy, she has learned, now, and it is just as well, because he is clever.

Well spoken – the words he chooses, the face he wears when he says them, all just a little too practiced for her to believe them, for she is accustomed with Silver-Tongues.

When one is working closely opposite the forces of Gellert Grindelwald, one must learn to recognise them, after all.

He is also a Slytherin, and she does not want to hold that against him, as easy as it is to allow old instinct to prickle at her suspicions.

“Brilliant, isn’t he?” Slughorn is saying, now that only the pair of them remain, and Hermione plasters a wide smile across her face as she gives her nod in response.

“As are you, Professor,” she says, hesitant. “Really, I’m sure there’s no need for me.”

“Nonsense,” Slughorn says, dismissive. “I cannot thank you enough for coming, my dear.”

Hermione sighs, quite unable to conceal her agitation.

“Horace, I am quite busy, you know,” she says tiredly. “We’ve just rescued another Muggle family, and Viktor is competing-”

“As was I busy when you came to me last year,” he says, lightly, but it is a warning all the same. “You asked me for a favour, and I was _happy_ to oblige, was I not! Happy to oblige, anything for my brightest student.”

“Anything, in return for a favour of your own,” Hermione says dryly.

She shakes her head.

“Why _this_ one, Horace? You’ve heard your students, today, and they’re not wrong. I am a Curse-Breaker, not a Potions Master,” she says pleadingly.

“Hermione,” Horace says, eyes glinting a little too much for her liking. “You are gifted – and not only in the art of curse-breaking, oh no-”

“Then why see fit to mention my position in the Ministry to the class?” she says, clipped, and his gaze drops to his toes at once, guilty.

“No harm in showing you off a little, my dear,” he says, almost apologetic.

Hermione glowers at him, royally unconvinced.

“You need me,” Slughorn reminds her, tone terribly friendly, forcibly so.

“I don’t suppose there’s any hope that you would simply help me without a price,” she says testily. “This is Grindelwald.”

Slughorn shakes his head, pitifully.

“Ah, if only, my dear – a war is no time for charity.”

He says it sadly, as though it is out of his hands.

Probably, he believes that it is.

“Alright,” she says, dejected. “I came, didn’t I?”

“Late,” he says mildly. “How very unlike you, Miss Granger, hm?”

“As I said, Sir,” she says, cold as ice. “It’s been rather a _busy_ time. Apologies. It will not happen again. Do you have it?”

Wildly inappropriate as it is, in the circumstances, Horace grins brilliantly as he taps his wand once upon his desk.

“ _Accio._ ”

In a violent shudder through the air, a tiny bottle to land in the precise spot.

Hermione kneels, now, careful not to touch it before she is satisfied with its contents.

“ _Oho,_ come now,” Slughorn says, hurt. “Have you ever known me to fail to deliver on a potion, dear?”

Had she been listening, she would have quipped something about how there is a first time for everything.

Still, she is transfixed with the little bottle, her breath fogging its glass.

Clear liquid, still.

Tentative, she presses the tip of her wand to its top.

A sharp jolt stings her fingers where they grip it.

“Perfect,” she murmurs, more to herself than to him.

Slughorn thanks her liberally, just the same.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Over the past two weeks, Tom Riddle has developed two theories.

The first: Professor Granger, for all her, admittedly impressive, breadth of intelligence, does not know what the word _‘observe’_ means.

The second, and perhaps more likely: Professor Granger is perfectly aware of its definition, yet finds herself, nonetheless, incapable of giving effect to it.

This afternoon, as is fast becoming routine, it is Horace Slughorn who sits, meek, in the chair that she had set upon the very first time, eyes wide and face ruddy as she stands before them, pewter cauldron bubbling lilac at the desk.

“Associate Professor my ass,” Jonathan Mulciber had murmured, the second lesson, and it had been a fair comment.

“Abraxas,” she is saying now, and Malfoy straightens beside him, chin pointed up. “Can you tell me what this is?”

There is, they have learned, no room to hide in Professor Granger’s classroom.

This has proved most distressing for most everyone, to Tom’s mild amusement.

 “Draught of Living Death, Professor,” Malfoy says politely.

“Ten points to Slytherin- yes, that’s right. And what does this potion do, Marcus?”

The Hufflepuff hesitates.

“Oh, uh, Draught of Living Death- Miss, that’s the sleeping potion,” he says, pleased. “It makes the drinker appear dead, doesn’t it?”

“That it does,” Granger inclines her head. “Ten points to Hufflepuff. And Myrtle-”

The Ravenclaw girl, inconspicuous in the middle row and the side of the room, starts, her face alarmingly white under ridiculous spectacles.

“Yes Miss?”

More a croak, a whisper, than anything else.

Professor Granger’s features soften where her voice does not.

“Miss Warren, can you tell me what important question we must ask ourselves, before we even think to embark on making a potion?”

“Can I,” Warren swallows, looking rather like she may faint quite imminently. “Uh…”

Good lord, she really might –

Lestrange’s foot grazes Tom’s ankle, and when he tilts his head, the other boy is grinning at him in anticipation.

“Perhaps Tom can help,” Professor Granger says, at last putting the girl out of her misery, eyes falling, as they invariably do, more often than not, on him.

His lip twitches as he meets her gaze, the unspoken plea that glints there most satisfying to behold.

For a moment, that is all he does.

She needs him.

Most Professors do, if they hope to trudge through their dreary lessons with any measure of efficiency, but he thinks that it bothers her more than most.

Has her cheeks flushed and brow furrowed, and he rather likes the look, on her.

“Certainly, Professor,” he says at last, when the _please_ in her face becomes impatient, annoyed. “I would expect that before brewing any potion, one must ask whether the potion in question has an antidote.”

It is the right answer, of course, but Professor Granger does not reward it with a smile.

It seems he has rather soured her mood, because she snaps it, brisk, that he has earned ten points for Slytherin.

“So,” she says. “Does the Draught of Living Death have an antidote- let’s see- Roland?”

Tom _hears_ the toothy leer that he is giving her, now.

“Is it you, Miss?” he says innocently, earning a rumble of gentle laughter from the seats behind him.

Professor Granger’s lips press together in a tight line, not, it seems, sharing in their amusement at Lestrange’s umpteenth attempt to get in her proverbial skirts in the midst of a lesson.

She had humoured him rather generously, in Tom’s opinion, the first time.

The same could not be said for the second.

To Lestrange’s immense credit, or perhaps something else, her keen disapproval has not deterred his efforts in the slightest.

Tom has spared the Professor from the worst of it, of course; drawn the line at Roland pestering her when the class is dismissed, much to his chagrin.

“How old are you, Roland?” she asks now, tone clipped.

“If you’re asking if I’m _legal,_ Miss-” Lestrange says, voice like silk, and Rosier is having a _fit_ beside him, now, a hiss of ‘ _oohs’_ rippling through the room, and Slughorn is choking on his tea.

“She’s not,” Tom says, irritated. “Though, Professor, can I clarify whether it is Roland’s mental or physical age that you’re inquiring after? They’re quite different, you see.”

This warrants an audible response of its own, gasps and giggles, and Black shakes her head, amused, in his direction.

He turns back to the front of the room, now, in time to catch an invariable smile transform Professor Granger’s features, if only for a moment.

“Thank you, _Roland_ ,” she says pointedly. “I ask because I find it rather surprising that you feel the need to deflect, given that most seven year old Purebloods know the answer.”

Abraxas snorts at that, fires a look over his shoulder to Lestrange that says, ‘ _she’s not wrong’._

Tom only frowns.

He knows the answer, of course – Wiggenweld is the rather insultingly easily prepared antidote to Draught of Living Death – though why a seven year old Pureblood might be expected to know it, were they not especially studious, is beyond him.

“I assume you’re familiar with the story of the cursed princess Mortina? Condemned, by Leticia Somnolens, a rather powerful witch motivated by jealousy, to sleep forever?” Professor Granger goes on.

“The fairy story?”

It is Lucretia Black, surprise colouring her tone.

Professor Granger nods her affirmation.

“But the prince kisses her,” Nott says, uncertain.

Professor Granger smiles wryly.

“Unnecessarily. It only woke her because he had the antidote to the Draught on his lips.”

“Ha! Should’ve put it on his _co_ -” Mulciber, emboldened, starts, and his mouth is moving, still, but the word does not ring out of it.

A spell, silent, again, and Professor Granger had not so much as batted an eye.

Tom looks at her, transfixed, for some semblance of a sign. Fatigue, perhaps – some indication of the effort expended to perform non-verbal magic.

He finds none.

Still, while her magic had swallowed his last words, it was not difficult to deduce what they might have been.

Lestrange is erupting with a silent sort of laughter behind him, Black and Nott gasping at the back.

The corner of Abraxas’ mouth lifts, only slightly.

“I’ll thank you,” Professor Granger says, quiet, now, “not to trivialise assault by joking about it, Mr Mulciber.”

The boy, a weedy, unappealing thing, not bright enough to be taken seriously in class and not coordinated enough to stand a chance at Quidditch, puts his hands up.

“I wasn’t joking about _assault,_ Miss,” he protests.

“I believe that you think that’s true,” Granger pauses. “Perhaps you will believe differently after detention tomorrow evening, Jonathan.”

“Detention?” he groans. “Miss-”

“Come now,” Slughorn pipes up, words punctuated by an uneasy chuckle. “Terribly inappropriate, of course, but there’s no harm done, is there?”

Professor Granger turns to him, narrow brows dangerously lifted, and her nostrils flare, just once.

“On second thought,” Slughorn says hastily, “it appears there is, doesn’t it? Very well, very well-”

“Professor Granger,” Tom says, half to relieve Slughorn of his Associate Professor’s sharp look, and half to drag the lesson along of his own accord, “given that the Wiggenweld potion is rather easily concocted, I was wondering of the utility of using the Draught of Living Death, in practice? I can’t imagine it would be terribly effective against a Dark Wizard, for example. One might expect them to have the antidote close to their person as a precautionary measure.”

Granger is nearly visibly relieved for a moment before her expression clears, all-professional.

“Ten points to Slytherin, Tom,” she says. “For identifying the Wiggenweld potion. And, yes. If your object is to incapacitate a person, the Draught is not the most reliable way to do it. Certainly, it works well enough on petty criminals – thieves, and so on. Mostly, it is used during medical treatments, so that the patient does not feel any discomfort. However, it is open to abuse.” Her lip curls, distaste. “There has been an epidemic, for example, in the United States, of some young men using the Draught to allow them to sexually assault girls.”

Mulciber swallows, hard.

“Have you used it, Professor?” Tom asks, now, quite unable to help himself. “In your line of work? Provided the answer is not classified, of course.”

In truth, he’s been cautiously testing the waters where inquiries about Granger’s status as a Curse-Breaker are concerned, to no great end, thus far.

Granger’s lips are maddeningly sealed about all things not strictly on the Potions Curriculum.

He flashes a smile that he hopes is quite dazzling enough to earn him a decent response.

The class is listening keenly, now.

Wherever Professor Granger’s work is concerned, they tend to, though Tom suspects that, for the most part, it is only because they want to hear about Grindelwald.

Granger pauses, for a moment, looks at him, studies him, searching, it seems, for something in his face, and he does not understand what it is-

He drops his gaze.

“Once or twice,” is all she says, in the end. Then, “You did well to ask about the uses of the Draught, Tom. There is little point in brewing a potion if you’ve no idea how it might be used, after all. Now-”

She directs them to the ingredients that she has taken the liberty, already, of casting onto their desks; the method, beside it.

“Isn’t this a NEWT level potion?” Rosier says uneasily, surveying the list with a dubious look.  

“Yes,” Professor Granger says briskly. “It is important to familiarise yourself with it before seventh year. It is, after all, a relatively complex potion, and exceedingly difficult to brew in under an hour. I don’t expect anybody to complete the potion perfectly, today. Consider this a test trial. Today, you don’t need to be afraid to fail. You will, almost certainly.”

Tom’s eyes rake over the leaking sloth brain, the plump Sopophorous beans, arranged neatly in front of he and Abraxas.

_Not fucking likely._

* * *

 

Tom scowls at the sore excuse for a potion bubbling feebly beneath him.

“-excellent attempts, most of you. I expect no less than five pages in response on my desk tomorrow. For the time being, you’re dismissed.”

His classmates shift around him, loud, clumsy, as they move for the door, calling their lazy thanks to Professor Granger as they go.

Malfoy taps him at the shoulder.

“C’mon. Some of us have Quidditch practice.”

“Give me a minute,” Tom says distractedly.

Stir, seven times, anti-clockwise, it said, and that is precisely what he has _done_ -

“What for?” Rosier says. “Professor Granger _said_ we’re meant to fail, this time.”

“We’re not meant to fail, nobody is ever _meant_ to fail, Rosier,” Tom snaps.

“Tom.”

It is Professor Granger, fingers cool where they touch his wrist.

Not that they linger there particularly long.

Tom flinches from them promptly enough, and their tips only skirt across his skin, having no intention to rest there in any case.

Her voice is gentle, outside of class. Not exceedingly so, but enough that he notices the difference.

“It’s alright, Professor,” Abraxas says with an air of amusement. “He’s just in a mood because it’s the first potion he’s not miraculously mastered on the first attempt.” He leans in, now, as though confiding a secret. “Tom loathes mediocracy, you see.”

Professor Granger’s eyes find his, startlingly _kind_ , and so he averts his gaze from them at once with a grunt.

 “Thanks for the lesson, Miss,” Rosier says earnestly, and Lestrange echoes the sentiment, albeit in a distinctly less wholesome manner.

“Alright,” Abraxas says. “We’re going to the pitch before my chances at making Captain die as spectacularly as our potion.” He shoots a grin meant only for Tom. “Meet you at dinner.”

He barely stops to incline his head-

Not that Tom would have noticed, if he had.

He returns his attentions to the disastrous concoction in front of him.

It is not _lilac,_ even, not yet, and it is infuriating because he’s done bloody everything _right_.

Unless Malfoy cut the fucking beans, wrong, but Tom had been careful, watched him-

“I’m afraid Professor Slughorn and I have another class in a matter of minutes,” Granger says, quite genuinely apologetic.

There is a muffled affirmation from behind her- Slughorn, delving into the store-cupboards.

“I only need a matter of minutes, Professor,” he says, pleasant as he can manage.

She sighs.  

“The Draught of Living Death is difficult, Tom.”

“And when did you master it, Professor? Second year with your Polyjuice Potion?” he says, bitter, despite himself, and quite certain that he’ll not get much of an answer from her, anyway.

Sure enough, for a moment, she is wholly silent.

Then,

“Sixth, actually.” She says is quietly, as though quite ashamed. As though this is not something that she would care to share with simply anybody. “With great difficulty.”

It is enough to break him from his reverie, tear his eyes from the potion to examine her, but she is as vexing as it is-

“Well,” he says. “Isn’t that _just_ -”

Frustrated, he grips the cauldron spoon, hard, tugs it through the potion with a single, harsh motion-

There it is, then.

Too late, of course, and so it is entirely unsatisfying, but better, at least, than nothing.

Slowly, the green, yellow, turns to _violet,_ pale and simmering.

Professor Granger draws in a breath, sharply.

“That was clockwise,” she mutters, brow furrowed.

“What’s that?” It’s Slughorn, returned from his rummage through the supplies carrying what looks to be a clear jar chockful of ugly red beetles. “Oho! That’s my boy. _Gifted,_ what did I tell you, Granger.”

“It seems he is,” Granger says slowly. “Well done, Tom.”

It is, he supposes, a compliment.

At least, she means for it to sound like one.

Still, the pull of her brows, the way she chews her lip, say something else.

That she knows this was no matter of Tom being especially gifted, clever.

This was just what it had looked like.

Tom, frustrated, getting _lucky_.

She thinks that he is lucky, and it sours his mouth, because, of course, he is anything but.

Because Slughorn is right, and he is fucking gifted to boot, and she does not believe it.

“Thank you, Professor- _Professors_.” He bows his head. “I’ll be out of your hair at once.”

“Never a bother, Tom, never a bother,” Slughorn says seriously, jabbing him in the chest with his finger, apparently, to emphasise the point.

Tom plasters a polite smile across his face as he shifts his satchel across his back and takes his leave.

* * *

 

“What was that, then?” Lestrange says, even as the sweat from his forehead drips heavily to his chin- the residue of a rigorous training session, Malfoy and Rosier in tow and similarly pungent as they enter the Common Room.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” Tom says, unpausing as his quill twitches upon the parchment.

“ _Potions,”_ Lestrange says pointedly. “You’re ruining my chances with Granger.”

At that, Tom is surprised enough that he does see fit to drop the quill.

“Your chances with Granger?” he repeats slowly, moderately hopeful that, if he says it slow enough, Roland will realise precisely how ludicrous it sounds.

“You heard me,” the other boy says hotly. “Your whole bit about my _mental age_ -”

“You’re quite welcome, by the way,” Tom says mildly. “You were out of line, Roland.”

“Hear that?” Lestrange says, whipping round to face Abraxas, Evan, with a triumphant sort of look. “Didn’t I tell you? He thinks he’s her bloody white knight now.”

Tom raises his eyebrows.

“You’re being quite ridiculous. Abraxas, tell Roland that he’s being ridiculous.”

“Already have, Tom,” Malfoy says tiredly, collapsing onto his spot at the couch opposite. “Though,” he hesitates. “You _did_ stay behind, today.”

Lestrange pounces on the comment with gusto.  

“He did, didn’t he? Wanted to talk to her more about how _immature_ I am, I expect.”

“I don’t really think she needs any further clarification on that point,” Tom says smoothly. “You’ve done a splendid job of settling that particular matter on your own.” He turns onto a fresh sheet of parchment. “And what I _wanted_ was to complete our Draught of Living Death. Obviously.”

“You do sort of stare at her, though, Tom,” Rosier says.

“I understand that you’re not accustomed to it, Evan,” Tom says, clipped, “but in class, you are generally encouraged to face the teacher.”

“We looked for you at dinner,” Lestrange says, eyes narrowed to slits. “You weren’t there.”

“I went earlier and did not see _you_ ,” Tom shrugs. “I’ve been in the library for the remainder of the afternoon.”

It is a lie, though only partially.

Tom didn’t care to come down to dinner on this particular occasion.

He was altogether too taken by the books, ancient at their content; what they told him about Salazar Slytherin, his Chamber, and the monster, he has learned, said to dwell inside it.

“I don’t know why you bother,” Abraxas says. “No Professor would dream of giving you less than an Outstanding at this point. They do it out of habit.”

“They do it because I earn it,” Tom says crisply. “ _Always.”_

Lestrange rolls his eyes.

“Alright, Mr Meritocracy.” He grins. “Don’t know what you’re worried for. You know you can always come work for me.”

An offer made on an almost daily basis since first year.

Roland has made it no secret that his family intends for him to take over operation of their antique magical objects trade, upon finishing school.

If he is intelligent, he has certainly never seen the need to show it in a classroom.

“That,” Tom says, clapping his hands together briskly. “Is all the motivation I need to _return_ to the library.” He tucks his things under his elbow. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“The library,” Lestrange snorts, “is that what you’re calling Granger’s office, now?”

Tom could pretend to ignore him.

Certainly, he’s nothing to _gain_ from agitating Lestrange when he’s fixed upon something as he is this.

Still, something coils in his stomach- petty, perhaps, but it presses, and so he turns, just as his hand falls upon the door.

“She’s never going to shag you, Lestrange,” he says, matter-of-factly, because it is one.

Because if there is one thing Tom understands with absolute certainty about Hermione Granger, it is that she is clever; in a vexing, near insufferable manner, of course, and she is _serious_ , secretive; a woman, and not a girl.

Someone like that could never want Roland fucking Lestrange, and it is far better that he knows it now.

He has the rare satisfaction of glimpsing the boy’s face, utterly blank, even as the door swings closed behind him.

* * *

 

Slytherin’s monster is beautiful.

At least, according to _Hogwarts: Missing History,_ the decidedly less edited counterpart to _Hogwarts: A History_ stowed in the Restricted Section.

Being Head Boy has measurable perks, and virtually uninhibited access to all areas of the library is certainly one of them.

It is not only beautiful, though, no-

It has a _purpose._

Slytherin’s.

It obeys him, only him, and, of course, his Heir, one would hope.

Salazar’s purpose, of course, was to preserve the sanctity of magic, a noble endeavour if ever there was one.

To ensure that Hogwarts did not play host to those with dirty blood, non-magical people; Muggles, and Muggleborns.

Tom’s mouth sours.

Perhaps, when he finds it, the Chamber and its Monster, he might set it on his dear father, if he ever fucking _finds_ him.

Tom Riddle –                                                                                                     

Merlin, he could be every bit as ordinary, as terribly _mundane,_ as Tom imagines him to be-

But there is little use in thinking about that now.

He furrows his brow, leans in.

There is unhelpfully little in the way of a description of the Chamber to be found here, though he scanned the pages once more for good measure.

Aside, of course, from the fact that it is described most definitively as a Chamber, and not a Secret Broom Cupboard.

He cannot rule out the possibility that the Chambers might well be secret, only insofar as its origins are concerned.

Classrooms, staff quarters, it may well be hidden in plain sight, its true appearance, perhaps, only to reveal itself to him?

In any case, it seems the library can only be of so much assistance to him on this occasion, and, aside from offering a spell by which the Chamber may be identified, the task of locating it may well have to comprise of a tedious tour of Hogwarts.

Slotting the book neatly back into its home on the third shelf in the Restricted Section, Tom bids the library farewell in favour of a careful walk about the castle, turning his eye upon every door he has ever noticed, and each one he has ever not; portraits more skewed than normal-

He is on the second floor, the echoes of faint laughter, conversation, the jarring clink of forks scraping bowls, from the last of dinner, the floor down.

The floor bares little of interest to him: a handful of first year classrooms, used, most frequently, for Charms and Transfiguration.

A boys bathroom, and a girls.

“Hello, Tom.”

A soft voice, a feminine one, and Tom fixes his jaw tight to stop himself from scowling to harshly.

“Miss Black, I’m afraid I’m-” he begins, terse as he looks up-

But it is not Lucretia.

“Miss Warren,” he says, frowning, at the Ravenclaw with wide-brimmed glasses and an unfortunate fringe, from Potions.

“You were expecting someone else,” she says, voice hoarse, as though she has just been crying.

“Not at all,” he says. “What can I do for you, Miss Warren?”

It occurs to him that it is most probably in his capacity as Head Boy that the girl has approached him.

“You can call me Myrtle,” she says, and she is too meek, cheeks too flushed pink, for him to be right about her reason for approaching him, more’s the pity.

“Miss Warren is fine.”

“Right,” she says, fidgeting with the hem of her robe, now. “I just wanted to say that I thought that it was nice of you, in class, when you told off your friend.”

Why everyone is so bloody fixated on that one exchange, Tom has no idea, but it is becoming quite bothersome.

“Yes, well. He was being most disruptive,” Tom says shortly. “I am Head Boy, after all.”

“You are,” Myrtle says, with uncalled for enthusiasm, and Tom takes a step back compulsively.

She notices, too, her eyes wide, hurt, though she swallows, elects to ignore it.

“I was wondering,” she goes on, voice jarringly high in its pitch, “if you would like to go to Hogsmeade with me?”

Tom can only blink now.

“Hogsmeade?” he says, more than a little stunned.

The girl nods, eager, eyes too bright, dilated, for him to meet, and fuck, but he’s never spoken to her in his _life-_

He’s made sure of it.

“You don’t want to,” she says, this sorry, pathetic sort of look coming over her. “I-I thought it was an awful idea, only, you always seemed so nice in class, and clever. You’re not like all the other boys, and Florence said-”

At that, a flurry of laughter erupts, far down the hall, but the sound carries, and Tom cranes his neck in time to catch a glimpse of tight, blond curls.

Nott; and where there’s not, Lucretia Black is sure not to be far.

Tom nearly swears-

Because he’s got a job to do, by all rights assigned to him by Salazar fucking Slytherin himself, and he’s utterly interested in this _nonsensical_ -

“I’m sorry.” Myrtle, stricken, is looking past him, now, though the girls have scurried away. “I’ve made a mistake.”

Without pausing for Tom to say another word -a blessing, perhaps, for he’s not sure he could manage to appear to give a damn for long enough to compose one – she has picked up her robes and shuffled across the floor to the bathroom, the one with the queer smell that Tom has, in truth, not ever seen in use before, the beginnings of her sobbing already threatening to erupt from her mouth.

* * *

 

“One day, perhaps, you will tell me what dear Horace offered, to convince you to come back to Hogwarts,” Albus Dumbledore says, eyes glittering in the way that only his do, and Hermione can only shake her head, a smile playing at her lips, and she raises the cup of weakly brewed tea to them, indulging in a further sip as she sits opposite the man in the little office behind his Transfiguration classroom.

“I’m more interested, Professor, in what I can offer _you,_ to convince you to come and join us at the Ministry.”

Now it is the older man’s turn to shake his head, always somewhat sadly, she thinks.

“I don’t suppose I need to tell you that the Ministry would be more than happy to meet any conditions you wish,” she says, delicate, for she knows that Albus Dumbledore is not ever one to do a thing he does not wish to. “You needn’t even be _part_ of the Ministry, Sir, if that is your concern. But you’re the best chance that we’ve got against him. Everybody knows that.”

“You needn’t call me Sir, Hermione,” he reminds her, a gentle smile warming his face- but then, she cannot remember Professor Dumbledore to ever have appeared cold. “You are a Professor in your own right now. A marvellous one at that, as Horace has reliably informed me.”

Hermione laughs.

“I’m not sure Horace has ever reliably informed anyone of anything,” she says, before realising that she quite probably shouldn’t, and she is just about to make a fuss of retracting and qualifying her comment when Professor Dumbledore waves his hand with a chuckle.

“A fair point, Miss Granger,” he muses. “As to your offer, I must decline. But you must know, Hermione, that you do not need me to defeat him. The work you’ve done for his victims – it is remarkable. People who should not have lived to see another sunrise have done so, because of you. That is what is winning this war.”

“That isn’t winning,” Hermione says abruptly. “That’s – cleaning up. We’re good at that, the Ministry – at handling the debris, making things _tidy_ , but with respect, Sir, we’re _rubbish_ at what’s more important than that. _Finding_ him, stopping him. We’re not even trying to do it, because everybody is petrified of him.”

“They are right to be,” Dumbledore says slowly. “Do you think that I am not, Hermione?”

“No,” she says, unable to quite keep the desperate tones from her voice, now, and she sets her cup down on its saucer with more force than strictly necessary. “But I’ve seen what you can do, Sir- _Albus_. You could have been the Minister for Magic if you wanted it. Still, they’re begging you to take the job, and it’s for a reason.”

“I do not seek power, Hermione,” he says, kind in the face of her frustration, and she cannot stand it.

She draws in a breath, counts.

“Of course,” she says, calmer, now. “I do not mean to press you.”

“You do,” he says, a mischievous sort of look about him that has him resembling a much younger man. “But it’s quite alright. It comes, after all, from a place of care, love.”

Hermione looks into her tea cup, the leaves skewed in a peculiar pattern across the base, and if she were superstitious, she might be shaken by the chill, the dark, that it seems to invite; might read them and despair at her ill fortune, for her fortune was always going to be ill. 

“Something like that.”

* * *

 

Tom prods the door, lightly, at first, and then again, with force.

Locked, the fucking thing-

He frowns.

Because he can hear somebody, a murmuring, faint, but irrefutably there, and he glances behind him, but the corridor appears quite deserted.

But he can hear it still: soft, feminine, and he braces himself, because if Lucretia Black sees fit to orchestrate another useless disruption -

But it is not her.

Nor Nott; not Myrtle, returned from the bathroom.

He edges down the corridor, coming, at last, to the Transfiguration Professor’s classroom-

Dumbledore.

And, inside, Professor Granger, he is certain of it.

She is agitated, too, it seems, speaking very quickly without pausing to take a breath, and if he strains, he hears the word ‘ _Ministry’;_ the word _‘Grindelwald’_.

His pulse quickens.

“-don’t mean to pry, Hermione,” it is Dumbledore, now, and he is speaking to her the way he does to him, sometimes, and so he leans closer, presses his ear to the door, that he might hear better. “But you wouldn’t be planning on attempting anything… unorthodox?”

“Of course not.”

Professor Granger, rushed, rather in the manner of a liar.

Tom frowns.

“You know me, Professor – uh, Albus. I’d be the last to flout the rules.”

Where she says ‘last’, Tom hears ‘first’, understands ‘first’, because it is wildly apparent; because she is planning _something_ -

A chuckle now, light.

 _Fond_ , even.

“You were an impeccable student, Hermione, but that is not _quite_ the way I recall you.”

So she _was_ a student at Hogwarts, once upon a time.

Recently enough, her age would suggest.

She did not merely attend, either, that much has been made quite apparent, if not by Slughorn, that first day, and Dumbledore, now, then by the witch herself.

She is too fully awake to have sat anywhere but the front, the centre, of every class, Tom thinks.

Yes, she must have been high-achieving indeed, and liked well enough by _Albus Dumbledore_ , the uptight old coot, and it is enough to make Tom loathe her, because Merlin, if he hasn’t laid too much of his time to waste chasing after that daft man’s approval-

He swallows.

To be so renowned, Professor Granger must surely have been s _omebody._

Certainly, she must have run for Head Girl, and who on earth could have bested her in such a contest?

All of this, of course, is terribly curious, given that there is no record of Hermione Granger in the trophy rooms; no photograph, no name.

Tom has checked.

Twice.

“In any case,” Dumbledore, again. “It has been wonderful to speak today.”

“It has.”

Her voice is louder, now, closer, and Tom moves away from the door.

“Good evening, Albus.”

It is creaking, now, and Tom has all of five seconds to compose himself, even as Professor Granger shoves it shut behind her, leans against it, and –

“ _Fuck_ , _”_ she says frustratedly, her eyes closed, hands are tearing through her hair, and Tom is startled and amused in equal measure-

Her eyes fly open.

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathes, and at once, she is standing upright again, face perfectly vacant. “Tom.”

“Professor,” he says politely, not at all bothered to hide the upward curve of his mouth. “Colourful language – I can’t imagine why you don’t put it to use more in your lessons.”

“I had rather thought that I was alone,” she says defensively, though she is flushing.

Her eyes graze over him where he stands, halfway across from her, and, he expects, mildly flustered on account of having suddenly jerked away from the door.

She is clever, she does not miss it.

“Tell me, do you make a habit of eavesdropping?”

He opts, first, to feign innocence.

He frowns, as though earnestly bothered by her proposition.

“Sorry?” he says. “ _Eavesdropping,_ Professor?”

“Mm,” she says, eyes carefully trained on his. “Listening in on private conversations.”

“I know what it means,” he sniffs, more than vaguely insulted, now. “I’m not nearly so interested in other people’s conversations enough to do that, Professor.”

“That, Mr Riddle, I believe well enough,” Granger says it wryly, she is right, and so Tom does not press her for it.

Instead, he pauses, head leaning to one side.

Instead, he wonders, if he asks, what he might learn from her, now, if he pries carefully enough.

Tentative, he nods his head toward the room that she has emerged from so fucking flustered.

“Dumbledore taught you too?”

Professor Granger sticks her chin out, just slightly.

Merlin, she responds to every bloody question as though she’s being interrogated for some crime she definitely _did_ commit, but just might get away with, if she holds her tongue.

“Yes.”

“Yes?” Tom repeats, trying not to sound too terribly mocking.

Her arms wind firm across her chest.

“Yes,” she says, smoother, this time. “It wasn’t long ago that I graduated myself, after all.”

“And when was that, Professor?”

His inquiry, enveloped, as it is, in an innocent tone, is met with a vaguely concealed scowl.

“Are you asking for Roland Lestrange’s sake, or your own?” she says coolly.

Tom’s lip twitches at mention of Lestrange.

“Mm,” he muses.

He does not particularly mean to move towards her-

Only, he _does_ ; catches the staggered fall of her chest as she sucks in air as he steps in, and she smells like parchment, like tea, and the top button of her shirt, emerald, silk, that she had worn in class, rests open, now.

He swallows.

“I believe it was you, Professor, who told us, just last week, that to answer a question with one is the first tell-tale sign of deflection.”

“I’m your Professor, Tom,” she says, guarded. “I am quite within my rights to deflect your questions.”

“Difficult to see why you would feel the need to,” he says conversationally. “It’s a simple enough question. Isn’t it natural that your students might wish to know who they are expected to take lessons from?”

Still, she eyes him, wary, Merlin knows bloody _why._

“Not for most, no.”

“Well,” Tom says, trying rather hard to maintain his pleasant tone at this point, “ _most_ of your students are less interested in what you can teach them about potions than what colour knickers you have on, with all due respect, Professor. But pardon _me_ , truly, for wondering why it is that Slughorn’s favourite former student is decidedly unfeatured in the Hogwarts trophy rooms.”

It is in equal parts as though Tom has slapped her, and as though she has slapped him, now.

Her breath pauses, eyes sharp and nostrils flared-

 _Stunned_.

And he is quite certain that he is about to lose Slytherin the House Points that he has won them, today, this week, even, if Granger is feeling particularly vindictive.

“ _That’s_ it?” She laughs, now, and it is not of the inexplicably endearing character that it has been, before.

This laugh is bitter, mocking, somehow.

“Of course,” she nods, now, eyes half-closed, as though she is speaking more to herself than she is to him. “You want to see if the new Professor checks out, is that it?” Her lips twist. “Yes, my name is quite missing from the trophy rooms. I don’t suppose it’s a surprise that Slughorn wasn’t falling over himself to tell you why.”

Tom narrows his eyes, now.

“Why?” he says. “I suppose because it’s rather self-explanatory.”

“Is it, Tom?”

She whispers it, like a secret.

A sad one, at that.

And she is watching him again, evaluating him bloody _again_ -

“You didn’t receive any awards,” he says, and the Professor actually _snorts_.

“Quite on the contrary, Tom. I received them all,” she says, some distant sort of smile tugging at her mouth, the proud kind.

“And?” he demands, less gently than he had intended. “Where are they, Professor?”

“Not displayed,” she says shortly, and that smile, that hint of it, is gone. “They can never be displayed. Not until the world is quite a different one, anyway.”

Can never be displayed-

And, all at once, he understands.

He fucking _understands-_

But what an awful shame, a _waste_.

He is rigid, skin crawling, as though all over him there are spiders-

“You’re Muggleborn,” he finishes, so that she doesn’t, and if he doesn’t hate the sound of it, coarse on his tongue like something sick- “You’re-Merlin.”

He shakes his head.

“You’re _Muggleborn_ ,” he says it again, and it is jarring, loud, to his own ears.

When he speaks again, it is numbly.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I think, Tom, that you’ll find I haven’t _told_ you that,” she says gingerly.

“Are you denying it, then?” he says abruptly.

She fixes him with her gaze, now, eyes alert, narrowed, rather like a bird anticipating attack.

“I’m not ashamed,” she says, voice exceedingly soft.

Tom just about laughs now, once, short, without humour, fixes his own eyes firmly on the laces of his shoes.

“I’m not ashamed, Tom,” she says again, gentle, but firm all the same. “You don’t have to be either.”

At that, a hiss, snarl, _something_ , escapes his lips from low in his throat, and he tears his eyes to hers, incensed.

“You cannot possibly be suggesting-” he snaps, but already, she is interrupting.

“That you are, as well?”

“He’s told you,” he says suddenly, eyes darting back toward the door. “Dumbledore. I don’t care what he’s said about the Muggle orphanage. That says nothing about my blood, _nothing_.”

Her face is torn, now, some melancholy realisation setting in.

“Professor Dumbledore hasn’t told me anything,” she says quietly. “About an orphanage, or anything else, Tom. I only thought- Merlin, _Tom Riddle_ is hardly a Pureblood name.”

 For all she visibly loathes Lestrange, the two have more in common than she would care to think.

Tom flinches, feet scrambling in their haste to move away from her, now, and his face feels hot.

“I am _not_ Muggleborn.”

And who the bloody _hell_ is she, to suggest it?

Who the bloody hell is she, to take the Heir of Slytherin, to see herself in him, her _blood_ in him?

“Professor,” he adds, hasty, cheeks reddening, more to remind himself of her post than anything else.

Mudblood or not, she’s certainly capable of prescribing detentions, and Tom will be damned before he lets her spoil his impeccable record.

He risks a glance at her, searches for her the pinched cheeks, the furrowed brows, of an angry woman.

But Professor Granger is not looking at him.

Not anymore.

She stares ahead, down the corridor, and further, even, her eyes too wide for comfort, though they are vacant of any discernible feeling.

“I apologise,” she says, colourless. “It was improper of me to make such an assumption. I can see that I have made you quite uncomfortable.”

If it is her intention to make him feel as though he is a child throwing a tantrum, one who must be coddled, must have his own emotional state explained to him, she’s doing a rather marvellous job.

“Not at all,” he says icily, and for a beat, neither of them say a word more.

In the end, it is Granger who turns, prompt on her heel.

Granger, who pauses, brushes her hands off at the hem of her skirt, before setting off down the hall, moving between the portraits will her chin, defiant, in the air, as though she is daring them to stop her, to call her the word that is repeating, over again in Tom’s head, like a sick mantra.

_Mudblood._

* * *

Tom does not sleep, that night, or the next.

Not properly.

He does not sleep, because he hears it, still, _Mudblood,_ like a taunt meant for him, wielded, now, by Professor Granger’s tongue, a tasteless joke, and Salazar Slytherin is fuming at him, roaring at him-  

Find the Chamber.

That’s all he fucking needs to _do_ – find the Chamber, and that word will leave him, will not dare pester him ever again.

Find the Chamber –

And the problem with that, of course, is that he can’t.

He’s looked about everywhere he can think of, the obvious, to the obviously inconspicuous, to the too conspicuous, and every nook and cranny in between.

He has Abraxas looking now, a measure of last resort. 

Roland and Evan too, though they’ve no idea what it is that they are looking for, save for a new and roomier place for them to lounge around and complain about everybody else in.

When they find it, Tom will tell them what it is that they have, in earnest, discovered.

For now, it is better that the pair of them don't go around spreading word of Slytherin's Chamber. 

Malfoy, though, had heard the rumour already- a family legend, or so he had wagered.

He had lifted his brows at Tom until he had relented.

“You’re the Heir, then?” he says, for the umpteenth time, as they lounge by the fireside, the pair of them the first to return to the Common Room from dinner on this particular evening.

“It would appear so.”

“Because of the Gaunts?”

He is carving a startlingly red apple just about to death with the silver knife he has on him, always, mesmerised more with its peelings than the prospect that he might just be speaking with Slytherin’s Heir, so it seems.

“I’ve told you, Abraxas,” Tom says impatiently. “Not that we can be certain, until we find the Chamber. You’re certain you saw nothing?”

“Nothing on the first floor,” Malfoy confirms with a yawn and a shrug. “Perhaps you’re the only one who’s able to see it. It would stand to reason. How else could it possibly be hidden from the rest of Hogwarts for hundreds of years?”

Tom pauses, thinking.

“Only I can access it,” he says slowly. “I assumed that others would be able to at least see its entrance, if they knew what to look for, but perhaps not…”

“Quite the bind,” Abraxas muses, and whether he opens his mouth to say something useful or bothersome remains unknown, on account of Lestrange’s unceremonious arrival.

He all but crashes through the door, face flushed with firewhisky and smelling strongly of a perfume too sweet to be his own.

“Roland,” Tom says, concealing his distaste with a wry smile. “I suppose you’ve been diligently searching for a Chamber fit for Slytherin himself since dinner, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Lestrange grins sheepishly. “It’s called the girls bathroom on the fifth floor, eh!”

Abraxas’ lip twitches, and he takes a liberal whiff of air, closing his eyes before he mutters, in the manner of a connoisseur:

“Let me guess: Patricia Crabbe again?”

Lestrange looks delighted by this suggestion.

“How’d you know?”

Abraxas meets Tom’s eye, trying, it seems, rather hard not to laugh.

“Magic,” Tom finishes dryly.

“Ha!” Lestrange snorts. “Right. I’m about to pass out. Sorry, Tom. Keep looking for a bachelor pad tomorrow, promise.”

“You won’t,” Tom says tiredly. “Try not to accost any more women on our way to bed, won’t you?”

A wicked glint brightens the other boy’s eye.

“Can’t make any promises if I run into Professor Granger. Never shag me, hm? Sounds like a challenge, Tom, and you know it.”

 The thought of Roland Lestrange willingly pursuing a Mudblood is disconcerting to say the least.

“You’re on,” Abraxas is saying, now. “The estate’s still up for grabs, Roland.”

“I’ve not forgotten.”

Lestrange yawns now, feet heavy as he ascends toward the dormitory.

Abraxas turns to Tom, head shaking.

“Lestrange is shagging the castle’s female population in every bathroom on offer, and Rosier’s most probably got himself lost looking for this Chamber of yours. Sorry, Tom. Seems like you’re on your own,” he says ruefully.

“Mm,” Tom says, only half-listening in earnest.

_It’s called the girls bathroom on the fifth floor._

Lestrange had said it, and, inexplicably, it is turning over in Tom’s mind, and he can see her, now, Myrtle Warren, eyes glistening, but she had taken refuge in the bathroom before her tears had spilled, and the wailing had begun, because it was somewhere private; somewhere that she could hide, unseen.

_The girls bathroom-_

His veins are humming.

It is the only place in Hogwarts that Tom has not examined, not even turned his mind to, and it is ludicrous, but no more ludicrous than the prospect of a secret Chamber, secret Monster, in the heart of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and entirely under the nose of its Headmaster.

“On the contrary, Abraxas,” Tom says, slow, though his chest stutters fast, now. “I think our dear Lestrange might just lead us straight to it.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello lovely readers! 
> 
> Thank you so very much for your generous responses to the first chapter - both in comment and kudos form! Your support truly means a lot and entirely fuelled this update! 
> 
> A retrospective warning: this was a very rushed job and is unedited, on account of me lacking the patience to wait to post haha, so apologies for any errors and please do point them out if you see them so that I can correct them when I get the chance! 
> 
> Would love to hear your thoughts on how the story is progressing in this chapter!!
> 
>  Ooh also, shout-out to the wonderful arigoddessofnight for creating an amazing playlist that made writing this a hell of a lot easier! xx
> 
> Until next time, 
> 
> Take care xx


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol fair warning guys, this is basically crack fic now :')

* * *

 

“But I don’t understand,” says Rosier, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Why can’t _you_ do it?”

They are gathered at the brink of a hill by the Quidditch Pitch soaked in orange and yellow by the setting sun – Tom, Rosier, and Lestrange, Abraxas moving toward them in his gear, broom slung neatly across his shoulder.

He never seems quite so burdened by sweat as the others are, face remarkably unblemished by redness.

In the bleachers, a girl - Ravenclaw, fair-haired – watches him, blushes behind her hand.

“Oh, he’s got far better things to do, isn’t that right?” Lestrange grins. “Not that I’m complaining. More for me.” He leans in, eyes glinting. “You want someone to shag a bunch of girls to get a look at their bathrooms? I’m your man, Riddle.”

Rosier, ever loyal, laughs.

“Remind me again why the shagging part is quite necessary?” Abraxas says, unimpressed, having reached them, now.

“It isn’t,” Tom says tersely.

“It _is_ ,” Lestrange insists, “unless you want us skulking about the girls bathrooms on our own. People will think we’re up to no good. ‘Peeping-’ well,” he grins. “ _You know_.”

“Point taken,” Tom exhales heavily. “Evan, Abraxas? Much as I’d wager Roland would beg to differ, there are only so many bathrooms he can christen at any one time. Can I count on you to assist in the investigations?”

 “Oh,” Rosier says, eyes wide. “Oh, uh. I’m not sure, Tom. I’d love to help, but-”

“Excellent,” Tom says crisply. “Then it’s settled.”

“Don’t tell us you don’t know any girls, Evan,” Lestrange says breezily. “I’ve seen you after practice. Gemma Longbottom, eh? Not to mention the Potter bird. _Gryffindors_.” He wrinkles his nose in distaste. “You’ve got a stronger stomach than I.”

Rosier flushes scarlet, and Tom leans in with a questioning look-

This is quite the first he has heard of _this_.

“They’re not-” he splutters. “They’re my friends. Not that they’re my _friends,_ I mean, they’re Gryffindors, so they’re not my friends, but-what I mean is, they’re _Pureblood._ Not like they’re Mudbloods or anything.”

“ _Friends_?” Malfoy says delicately. “Careful, Rosier. The only sin greater than bedding a Gryffindor is befriending one.”

“They’re not my friends,” Rosier repeats weakly.  

“Then you’ll have no problem persuading them to invite you into their bathrooms,” Tom says with an air of finality.

Rosier opens his mouth-

And, sure enough, he closes it.

Satisfied, Tom turns to Malfoy.

“Abraxas?”

It goes without saying that he’s got more than a _little_ more faith in Abraxas’ ability to identify a hidden Chamber than Evan and Roland’s.

Malfoy sighs, long and heavy.

“Really, I would rather not,” he says testily. “The fairer sex here scarcely live up to the name. Besides, getting intimate in a _bathroom_ is hardly my idea of a pleasant evening.”

“Prude,” Lestrange snorts. “ _And_ a snob. Merlin, Abraxas. I’m starting to think you’re just not that way inclined.”

He winks heavily at Rosier.

Malfoy’s face flashes red before it turns rather alarmingly white.

“Oh, shut up,” he says coldly. “If you need it done, Tom, it is done. I can’t imagine it will be remotely difficult to convince Florence Nott to agree to a rendezvous.” He bristles. “You could be more specific about what it is that we’re looking for, you know.”

Tom chews his lip.

The frustrating truth of the matter, of course, is that he doesn’t know precisely what it is that is going to signal to him the location of the Chamber of Secrets.

“The House emblem,” he suggests. “Anything green, silver.”

Abraxas snorts.  

“Helpful.”

“I don’t see why we can’t just use any old spare room,” Rosier says. “We could always _make_ it look better. Put a snake on the walls and things, make a sort of homage to Slytherin if that’s what we want. Mother’s not bad at paint magic.”

He shuffles his feet.

“Not bad at paint magic?” Malfoy’s lip twitches. “I wasn’t aware we had an artist in our midst.”  

“Put the paintbrush away, Evan. Tom knows what he wants,” Lestrange says airily.  “A spare room isn’t good enough for us, eh? Tom says there’s some hidden Chamber in a girls bathroom fit for Salazar himself, we’re going to find it.”

With a fierce sort of grin, Lestrange presses his palms into his thighs, pulls himself to his feet.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me. It seems I’ve got women to court.”

* * *

 

“So, the potion’s called _Felix_?” Lucretia says, crinkling her nose at the liquid bubbling gold in the front of the room.

Professor Granger’s mouth twitches.

“Felix Felicis,” she corrects her. “Also known as liquid luck. No points for guessing what it does.”

“It makes you lucky?” Myrtle Warren says with an air of thinly veiled excitement, speaking for the first time in class since her near-brush with suffocation the last time Professor Granger had asked her a question. “How lucky?”

“A good question,” Granger nods. “Felix Felicis cannot guarantee that you will succeed at your every endeavour. It simply shifts the odds in your favour, so to speak. Softens the conditions within which you operate. Naturally, its use is forbidden before exams. In that context, the potion would render you more lightly to recall the answer than you might otherwise have been.”

“If that’s true, Professor, why doesn’t everybody use it all the time?” Rosier inquires.

Granger smiles thinly.

“Aside from the archaic notion that one ought to earn their successes and failures through merit,” she says sardonically, “it is prohibited in virtually all contexts.”

“Do you use it, Professor?” Potter asks. “I would think that, against Grindelwald, you could use some luck.”

“Oho, could they!” Slughorn chortles where he sits. “Why, Professor Granger was just telling me not a night ago-”

“ _Horace_ ,” Granger hisses, earning the bemused laughter, the hushed musings, of her students.

“If I had the liquid luck, Miss,” Lestrange says, boisterous, “and I propositioned you, would you have to say yes?”

Granger blinks, taken aback: not by his inappropriate manner, she is quite accustomed to that.

No, this is something _else_ \- though it is gone as quickly as it flickered across her features.

“Not even Felix Felicis would be strong enough to assist you there, Mr Lestrange,” she says curtly.

“Ah, there are fewer things quite so wonderful as the feeling that one gets when one is in the grip of Felix Felicis,” Slughorn says dreamily. “I say we make this interesting, eh? Liquid luck takes a good six months to brew – let’s say, the best brewed antidote to last week’s Draught of Living Death wins a bottle of Granger’s own finest!”

“Professor,” Granger says, imploring-

“That sounds _excellent,_ Professor,” Tom cuts in, smooth, of course, polite, but his chest is thundering, now.

Merlin-

 _Liquid Luck_.

It is so fucking simple, and so it had been too obvious – and, apparently, too time consuming, but of course, _of course,_ it is all he needs.

 _Felix_ will lead him to Slytherin’s Chamber far sooner than Lestrange and his string of unfortunate companions.

Slughorn claps his hands together, delighted.

“Then it’s settled!” he announces. “May the best wizard- or _witch_ ,” he bows his head toward Granger hastily, “win!”

Tom inhales, sharp, mouth twisting-

Because it will be too easy.

Because Slughorn knows it, and so does _she_.

Because she catches the curl of his lip, just, out of the corner of her eye; bristles with some apparent discomfort.

Professor Granger does not want to hand over her precious Felix to him anymore than she wants to advertise her blood status to the class, as much, of course, as she had insisted that she is not ashamed.

For that, Tom is glad.

Winning, he finds, is always so much more of a _pleasure_ , where there is a sore loser on the other side.

* * *

 

The remainder of the class has gone to dinner, deflated and offering their begrudged congratulations, when Tom approaches Professor Granger for his reward.

Professor Slughorn is preparing an elegant little vial of the liquid gold, happily muttering about how it had been no contest, and isn’t Tom just _brilliant_ , and isn’t it a _shame_ that he and Granger had not been classmates themselves?

“Congratulations,” Professor Granger says stiffly once he is standing in front of her, his hands clasped politely behind his back while he waits.

His smile is spectacularly wide.

“Why thank you, Professor,” he says, with the air of modesty that he wagers will drive her most mad.

Sure enough, her cheeks are flushed, brows pulled together.

“Don’t even _think_ about using it for an exam,” she says irritably. “There are spells to detect the sort of thing, and it won’t merely cost you a detention.”

“Professor Granger,” Tom says, quite genuinely wounded, “I’ve never had a detention in my life. Rest assured, I don’t seek to change that.”

“That a boy, Tom!” Slughorn says spiritedly. “Drat- awful vial, this one. I’ll get you a bigger one, Tom, a sturdy one!”

The list of admirable attributes that this new and improved vial is to have continues as Slughorn shuffles back into his store room, leaving, for the moment, Tom alone with one of two Professors at Hogwarts who aren’t remotely fond of him.

Granger swallows hard, the muscles in her throat working, even as she threads her arms across her chest, and she does not look at Tom.

Does not _move_ , even as something crashes and Slughorn curses liberally behind her.

“Is something bothering you, Professor?” Tom says delicately.

This inquiry turns the good Professor’s face positively stony.

“Not at all.”

For a moment, Tom only appraises her, a rather odd feeling setting in his chest, and it is decidedly unpleasant.

Before he can quite decide whether he fancies prodding her further, Granger is speaking again, quickly, and he almost misses it:

“You haven’t told Lestrange that I’m Muggleborn.”

He blinks.

“Come again?”

Granger scowls.

“You heard me, Tom,” she says flatly, but in an instant, the anger has vanished, displaced only by a cautious blankness. “Why haven’t you? Why haven’t you told _anyone_?”

Tom sniffs.

“Who’s to say I haven’t?” he says steadily, examining his nails, now.

“I say,” Granger says, clipped, “because, unless I’ve wildly misunderstood Roland Lestrange’s character, I don’t believe for a moment that he would want to proposition a Mudblood. What is more, most students would not be terribly pleased at the prospect of being taught by one. Am I wrong?”

Tom swallows.

Meets her eyes, now, albeit briefly, and he thinks that they are gold, now, like _Felix_ -

“Are you,” his tongue flicks over his lip, hesitant. “Are you thanking me, Granger?”

“No,” she says abruptly.

He frowns lightly, displeased at her response, the haste with which she said it.

“Good. Because I might, still. If I wish it. If it comes up,” he says coolly.   

Professor Granger flinches, just barely, but it is enough to evoke a response, invariable, in _him_ -

A _queasiness_ , born in his stomach and spreading to his spine, the back of his neck, the tips of his fingers.

He ought to apologise.

He is being impolite, and it wouldn’t matter, but she is a teacher-

 “I expect you will,” she says mildly.  

Tom looks at her, and she at him, and for an instant, they only do just that: each painfully curious, painfully guarded.

A crash, and the sudden emergence of a very red-faced Professor Slughorn, breaks them from the uncomfortable reverie they share in.  

“Apologies,” the man says hastily. “Here, my boy-”

With a hurried scoop, Slughorn fills this marginally larger vial to its brim with liquid luck, all but flinging it at Tom afterward with an alarming amount of gusto.

“To your good health, Tom!” he is beaming, he always is. “To your _good luck_.”

But Tom is not looking at him.

Merlin, he is not looking, even, at the potion, the one he has earned.

But it is senseless, in any case, because Hermione Granger dropped her eyes from his as though there is something poison in them.

“Don’t drink it all at once,” she says.

 _Not at all, Professor; of course not, Professor,_ he should say.

Only, truth be told, Tom rather intends to drink the lot, optimise his bottled luck while he has the chance.

He decides he will not lie to her.

He decides, this once, that he does not particularly want to.

* * *

 

Hermione watches the boy leave, studiously ignoring the restless hum of her conscience as she does.

Not that she has any cause to feel guilty.

It is not as though what she has done is _illegal_ , she reasons.

Certainly, it would be, for a lay witch, a Professor, even- but a _Curse-Breaker_ is perfectly within their right to cast a tracking curse upon a subject, where it is in the interests of the safety and wellbeing of the wizarding world to do so.

It had been easy enough.

There was little risk of another student besting him, once the wager was made, and Horace had been too fascinated with the boy as he brewed to notice her standing by the Felicis, wand inconspicuous in her hand and mind guarded coolly against any budding Legilimens in the audience, that they would not overhear her cast it within the comfort of her own head, ready to attach itself to Felix’s consumer.

Still, it is better not to let Horace know.

He is awfully fond of the boy, to the extent that his view of him is invariably clouded.

Besides, if Hermione is _wrong,_ there is no reason he need be concerned.

The trouble, of course, is that Hermione is not wrong, not ever.

The terrible trouble is that every prickling in her spine, every tremor in her wand, that has ever guided her into trouble’s midst is trivial compared to the absolute conviction she feels, to her bones, that Tom Riddle bears his mark.

_Grindelwald’s._

The boy is so blindingly plainly the _type_ that she is rather gobsmacked that Dippet doesn’t see it sticking out like a sore thumb.

Though, in fairness, Grindelwald’s type is, by nature, inconspicuous.

Brilliant, gifted, and for this reason, isolated, and so they cloak their loneliness with a superiority complex, some fierce belief that they are extraordinary, _misunderstood_.

Tom is riddled, too, to his core with stinging denial of his blatantly _Muggle_ heritage, with _loathing_ , even- and to be Grindelwald’s, he must loathe Muggles, to be sure.  

But he is polite.

Charismatic, like _him,_ and precisely the right age.

Young enough to sculpt into an image of Grindelwald’s liking, old enough that he need not teach him everything.

_And he had been outside the door._

_Listening,_ she had known it from the wide of his eyes, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the breaths that came too uneven.

If Tom Riddle is not a weapon in the heart of Hogwarts, he is one in the making.

Her resolve hardens.

She shall _not_ be made to feel guilty.

Her guilt, she knows, is what Grindelwald is counting on- is what is to stop her from meeting him where he towers over the Ministry, over the Muggles and the Muggleborns.

Her guilt keeps him _safe_ there, untouched, and untouchable, unless she dispenses with the crippling feeling altogether.

“Are you quite alright, Hermione?” Horace says airily, breaking her from her reverie.

“Yes, thank you,” she clears her throat abruptly. “A little poorly.”

A kindly look comes over him.

“Ah, it is that time of year!” he says sympathetically. “You’re welcome, it goes without saying, to any of the Pepperup in the stores.”

“Much obliged,” she says. Then, rather gracelessly, “I need more, Horace. Can you get it to me?”

The man’s face turns swiftly pallid.

“Goodness,” he says, mild alarm colouring his tone, “you’re not telling me that you’ve- _run out_?”

 “No, I’m not,” she says calmly. “But I’m of the opinion that one can never be too prepared.”

Horace shifts, uneasy.

“You’re certain this is cleared?” he coughs, nervous. “With the Ministry? I don’t want any trouble.”

“You won’t get any,” Hermione says, and it is not a lie, it is _not_.

She leans in.

“You’ll be a hero, Horace.”

At that, his beady eyes light up like a distinctly proud Christmas.

“Well,” he says, quite deliberately commanding an air of modesty. “I don’t know about _that_.” He pauses. “A little curious that the Ministry is not simply brewing it themselves, isn’t it?”

“Red tape,” Hermione says shortly. “You know how it is. It was best to outsource this particular project.”

“Naturally, my dear, naturally,” Horace says mildly, caught in thought that Hermione hopes, for his sake as much as hers, is not too deep, nor too critical.

She coughs, rather hoping to disrupt him.

“You’ll let me know when it is ready?”

“Of course,” he frowns. “How much is it that you need, Hermione?”

She inhales sharply.

“As much as you can feasibly produce.”

Horace whistles low, now.

“Merlin.” He shakes his head. “I must know, Hermione, I _must_. What is it exactly that you intend to do with it?”

She smiles wryly.

“Save the world, of course,” she says thinly. “I’m afraid I would have to obliviate you if I told you anything else, Horace.”

He is white as a sheet, now, though his eyes, they are alive, _excited_ -

To be part of something, something so important that he cannot know what it is.

That is why she knows he will do this, do it well.

“I understand,” he says.

He doesn’t, of course, but it is hardly any fault of _his_.

“Thank you,” she says, because she is grateful, supremely- she suspects he will never know just how much. “I knew that you would.”

* * *

 

Tom is pouring over his Charms essay, quill rested on his knee, when the door slams to an undignified close and Abraxas all but throws himself onto the soft leather of his usual lounge, unusually dishevelled.

“I found something.”

“Oh?” Tom’s eyes travel down the boy’s shirt, note the buttons done up wrong. “And who do we have to thank for that?”

His lip curls, amused, even as Abraxas’ face pinches unpleasantly.

“Florence Nott,” he snaps. “But that is rather beside the point, do you think?”

Slowly, Tom rolls in the parchment boasting his Charms work upon it, stows it into the pocket of his robe.

“What did you see?” he says briskly.

“Snakes,” Abraxas says curtly, “on the taps.”

Tom does not bother to mask his disappointment.

“And?”

“And nothing. That’s what I saw. Snakes, carved into the taps on the girls bathroom on the second floor.”

“Well,” Tom says, decidedly unimpressed, “isn’t your attention to detail just _unparalleled_. _Snakes on taps_.”

He lets his eyes linger on Abraxas’, lets him squirm, uncomfortable, for a moment.  

“This is fucking ridiculous,” the boy snarls.

 _Fucking,_ he says, and it is peculiar, because he makes a point not to employ such language, most of the time.

 “Is it?” Tom quirks his head. “I rather thought that the three of you would enjoy this, you know. Curious, how very much you really _don’t_.” He sniffs, surveys the flushed cheeks, the unkempt hair. “You ran out on her,” he muses. “Nott. Didn’t you? Poor form, Abraxas.”

“Careful what you’re implying,” Malfoy says stiffly.

“I’m not implying anything, Abraxas,” Tom says, nonchalant. “Roland, on the other hand, is quite convinced-”

“Convinced?”

“Convinced that you are not interested in the fairer sex,” Tom finishes lazily.

A snarl, guttural, low.

“Lestrange is an idiot.”

Tom eyes him steadily.

“I would not dream of suggesting otherwise,” he says reasonably. “Though, of course, an idiot is still perfectly capable of stumbling upon the truth, every now and then.”

Abraxas shifts in his chair, legs curling beneath him now, face distorted with a curious cocktail of sentiments, not all of which Tom can discern at once.

“What exactly are you accusing me of, Riddle?” he says, both guarded, and not, as though he is at once daring Tom to say it, to call him _that word_ – and pleading him not to. “Because I could accuse you of the same. Why is it, Tom, that you send us out to do _this_ job? Aren’t you always doing it all yourself? Why not this time?”

Abraxas stands, now, his entire form somehow trembling with something _hot_ , angry.

“Because,” Tom says icily, “ _this_ job is beneath me.”

Abraxas snorts you.

“Nothing’s _beneath_ you,” he goads. “Nothing has ever been beneath you, Tom, and everyone is starting to wonder why.”

“You’re projecting,” Tom says mildly, not bothering to stand. “You know I dislike it so when you do that.”

“ _I_ ,” Abraxas says heatedly, “am to be engaged to a Beuxbatons girl- a _Delacour_ , when school ends. Why is it, Tom, that you’ve no such arrangement in place?”

Tom pauses, looks up, now.

“Mm,” he muses. “An engagement. I had not realised it was already arranged. Is that what this was about, then? Protecting your _virtue_?”

He sneers, even as Abraxas anger dissolves into bafflement.

“Something like that,” he murmurs, perplexed frown still set on his forehead.

Tom shakes his head, exasperated.

“Fascinating,” he bites, “as that is,” he stands. “If you’ll excuse me, it’s time I consulted a friend who might have something more material to offer.”

Drawing the golden vial from his robes, Tom clinks the Felix Felicis merrily at Abraxas.

“I knew that was what you wanted it for,” Malfoy says bitterly. “What, so that was unnecessary, was it? Florence?”

“You will recall, Abraxas,” Tom says lightly, “that the shagging concept was entirely Lestrange’s design. I merely wanted you to find my Chamber.”

“You-” Abraxas says, face red, and oh, he is angry, now-

“Don’t fret,” Tom cuts in; smiles, brilliantly. “Your initiative was admirable. You’ve proven yourself to be a truly marvellous Plan B.”  

* * *

 

Tom does not think that it is blood that runs through his veins, anymore – Muggle, or pure.

It is only _Felix_ , now.

And it is _intoxicating_ ; has his pupils dilated, like Lestrange’s when he’s taken a fresh swig of his flask, mouth spread into an easy smile-

 _Easy,_ and it is peculiar, the way that his cheeks do not ache from it, how altogether pleasant the sensation.

His face, too, feel hot, though not out of any sense of shame, embarrassment.

He feels-

Merlin, _ridiculous._

Feels _giddy_ , chest humming merrily as the liquid luck sets in, and Tom has all but _forgotten_ Slytherin’s Chamber, forgotten Abraxas, undoubtedly scowling, still, in the room below, Professor Granger, telling him that he need not feel ashamed, because she had thought, had the audacity to think-

But it does not _matter_ , because the green of the curtains pulled tight around his bedframe is _brilliant,_ brighter than normal, and Tom cannot persuade his gaze to drop, because why would it?

It is stunning, after all, like a meadow, suspended in the air.

“Alright, Tom?”

It is Rosier, and before Tom can express his sincere delight, the other boy has tugged aside the curtain that conceals Tom from the rest of the dormitory.

“Evan!” Tom says, pleased- or perhaps more accurately, hears himself say.

Felix has appropriated his face, carved it to its liking, and now it has taken his voice, too, and it would be alarming, send a chill to his bones, a warning, except that it feels terribly _warm_.

He blinks, taking in the boy who stands before him, emerald Quidditch robes pooling at his feet on the floor, a scrape of mud on his cheek, dark eyes glinting quite nicely.

 “Evan, you’re short,” Tom announces with a frown.

“Tom?” Rosier says, puzzled. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Oh, I am,” Tom says, surprisingly earnestly. “Spectacular, as it happens. I merely find myself a little surprised- Quidditch players, you see, are usually so _tall_ \- but you,” he gestures to Evan’s rather short, rather round frame. “You’re not tall.”

He narrows his eyes, a single finger raised and pointed vaguely in Rosier’s direction. 

“Uh-no,” Rosier says, flushing, only slightly. “I’m not.” He shifts.

“I mean no offence,” Tom throws his hands up at once. “I admit, Evan, at times, I find myself wondering why it is that I continue to entertain your company.” He yawns, unbothered by the hurt that flits across Rosier’s face. “Merlin knows you’re not the brightest, and if I am being frank, I must confess that I find your laugh quite extraordinarily irritating. But a short Chaser- yes, that must be it. You must be quite good. Evan,” he stands, and, in a fluid motion, brings the palms of his hands to cup the bewildered boy’s cheeks. “Because you are not _built_ to be good at it. You’re not built to be good at anything, are you?” He inclines his head, surveying the boy, marvelling at him. “Yet you have defied your rather unfortunate genetic predisposition to fail catastrophically, and become a competent Chaser in any case. You can be- _trained._ ”

“You think I’m competent, Tom?” Rosier says, sounding a good deal more flattered than he ought to.

“I think you are _sensational,_ ” Tom declares. “You will be sensational, Evan. You can be trained, so you can be whatever it is that I need you to be, can’t you?”

“Whatever you need me to be,” Rosier repeats, awestruck. “I hope so. I mean, I want to be. I mean, you seem to have a clue, you know. How to be someone important.” He hesitates. “You really think you can make me somebody, Tom? Somebody to make my parents- y’know, make them-”

“Proud?” Tom finishes, because it is tiresomely predictable.

Rosier flushes when he nods.

Tom’s hands slide from Evan’s face to his shoulders, now, squeeze them too tight.

“Stay by me, Rosier, and they will not _recognise_ the wizard you will become,” he says, a promise, and Evan’s face lights up like _lumos_ in the dark.

“ _Wow_ ,” he mutters, eyes wide, mouth ajar, as though he must say something, but lacks the vocabulary.

“I must go,” Tom says at once, because he feels, with startling conviction, that he must leave the dormitories, the Common Room, right at this precise instant. “Farewell, Evan.”  

“Huh? Oh, you’re-you’re going?”

“I must,” Tom says, no nonsense. “I apologise that I cannot speak for longer. What is that saying? No rest for the wicked?”  

He grins.

If Rosier stares after him as he gathers his robes and marches, with purpose, for the door, the stairs- Merlin, if the entire _dorm_ does, Tom does not notice.

Down the stairs, to the left, and as luck would have it, the Common Room is utterly empty, though where Abraxas might have gone, Tom hasn’t the foggiest-

No matter, no matter.

He must find this Chamber, find it at once, and _Felix_ knows precisely where it might be found; where it is hidden.

Through the portrait, down the corridor, up the stairs and then down, to the right at the portrait of Lady Morgana, and the steady pad of his shoes, polished, on the floors, is louder than is normal, guiding him-

The light from the Great Hall beams at him from bottom floor, inviting him in, and yet it is not nearly warm enough to tempt _Felix_.

No, only one more floor down, this time, only one more-

It is where he had found _her._

Professor Granger.

Where he had heard her, heard Professor Dumbledore-

_Mudblood Mudblood Mudblood-_

But Tom is not one, could never be one.

She will understand.

One day, she will understand.

But it is not Professor Dumbledore’s classroom he finds himself outside, now.

This door is larger, its handle bulky, wooden.

It is the one that had swung tightly shut behind Myrtle Warren, the one she had masked her cries behind.

A girl’s bathroom, as he had _known_ -

He turns the handle, his every nerve shouting, now, jubilant, _ravenous_.

He blinks into the industrial white that greets him, neatly lined stalls, sinks unceremoniously stuck out the sides of a great column running from the ceiling to the ground-

But there is somebody here.

“Tom.”

* * *

 

Tom jerks his head upward, mildly apprehensive, if only for a moment, before his mouth spreads into a wide beam.

“ _Abraxas_?” he narrows his eyes at Malfoy where he leans, light, against the sinks. “You were in the Common Room.”

“I was,” the boy says, mouth curled, eyes shadowed as they flit over Tom’s. “You’ve taken it.”

Some manner of judgment appears to flash in them, though, Tom supposes, it is only reasonable that Malfoy should be jealous.

“You needn’t be jealous, Abraxas,” Tom says breezily. “I shall brew you some myself. It cannot be terribly difficult, only time consuming, and when we find our Chamber-”

Faster than Tom might have thought possible, Abraxas’ hand claps, fastens, over his mouth, his fingers digging, harsh, into his lip.

“Come off it, Tom,” Abraxas hisses. “Any daft girl could walk in any moment and you’re talking about the Chamber? _Here_? What happened to discretion?”

With a jerk of his head, the other boy’s grip on him loosens enough that Tom can step backward, once.

“ _Felix_ knows what he’s doing,” Tom says calmly. “You ought not frown, Abraxas. You’ve seen the abysmal state of your _father’s_ forehead, after all.”

Abraxas growls.

“You have some nerve.”

“Yes,” Tom says simply. “Isn’t that why you like me so terribly much?”

Abraxas mouth sours.

“I don’t like you, Tom.”

“No, I suppose _like_ isn’t the right word, is it?” Tom muses. “You _need_ me- yes, that’s better. It’s why you’re here, isn’t it? The second floor. You’ve come back to that bathroom, haven’t you? To prove that you’re right? Prove that you came through for me where Lestrange failed? Because you need _my_ approval. My gratitude. Admiration, perhaps?” He steps forward, closer, just a fraction.

Abraxas’ breathes come uneven, now, face flustered, and it is odd, because normally, he _isn’t_.

Abraxas Malfoy is composed.

_Collected._

Abraxas Malfoy does _not_ sweat, fidget, like the frightened boy before him, now.

“I need you to get your head right,” he retorts. “Because I was right, Tom. You’re here, aren’t you? The liquid luck’s taken you here, but you could have just _listened to me_. Are you that _obtuse_ that you’d sooner waste a valuable potion than trust the word of a friend?”

Tom blinks.

It is most unusual, the way he experiences conversation, now.

It is as though Malfoy’s words are simply floating, dream-like, before him, and in no particular order.

 _Listen,_ he hears.

_Obtuse, waste._

He frowns.

“Do you think that we are _friends,_ Abraxas?” he says, slowly, and he really is _asking_ -

Abraxas flinches, now, as though Tom has hit him square in the chest, wrenched his wand from his fingers and turned it true against him.

“You need friends, Tom,” he says tightly. “You need _me_. Case in point.” He steps back, now, palms spreading wide, and he gestures to the great marble of the column boasted in the very centre of the bathroom, _serpents_ carved into the white, into the silver of the taps, their scales ribbed, rising out of the sink, as though, if Tom were to just reach out, touch them, they would feel cold, sharp, _real_.

Tom draws in a sharp breath, elation drawing it forcibly from him, and he can hear something else, now, something so much more important than anything Abraxas could possibly be drawling on about, and so he stops listening altogether, strains, to hear that _sound_ -

A low growl, a hiss, even, terribly faint, but there, nonetheless, and it is echoing, travelling like a tremor from within the pipes, like something is buried beneath the very floors, the snakes and their taps-

Something waking.

“Tom?” Abraxas is saying, brow furrowed in his concern, now. “Tom, what is it?”

“Snakes," he murmurs, "on the taps. Oh, Abraxas,” Tom says, absent-minded, idle, but _lingering,_ savouring every moment of this- the knowledge that of course, he was right. That of course, Slytherin hid a Chamber. _Of course,_ Tom has found it - and Abraxas had been valuable, after all. “I do believe I could kiss you.”

Abraxas seems to choke, now, words, breath, caught in his throat, and he is floundering, now, mouth opening and closing again dumbly, and he is shaking his head -

But Tom pays him no mind, now. 

Leaning in, to the hissing, the creature, the monster that beckons him, Tom presses his palm, firm, into the very heart of the column upon which the serpents are carved, feels the gentle electricity that hums under his fingers where they meet the marble.

“Excellent,” he murmurs, and his eyes are closed, and Abraxas has started, tensed, beside him, because he does not understand-

Because Tom is not speaking any tongue known to him, not anymore.

“Now, _open_.”

* * *

 

Past curfew, Tom Riddle left the Slytherin Common Room.

It is not unusual in and of itself.

He is, after all, Head Boy, and monitoring the halls after hours falls to him.

If asked, he could certainly justify it to anybody who might be foolish enough to interrogate him on the point.

The terrible trouble, of course, is that Professor Hermione Granger is not foolish.

The terrible trouble, of course, is that she has seen _everything_ , courtesy, first, of a tracking charm, and second, the assistance of her old friend’s invisibility cloak, a relic of the earlier days, the better ones, veiling her from his view, from anyone’s.

Seen everything, heard _everything_ , and so she _understands_ , without understanding, and her blood runs cold because of it.

_The Chamber of Secrets has been opened._

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! 
> 
> Thank you for your wonderfully encouraging responses to the last two chapters! 
> 
> So, as I mentioned earlier (cos I felt you deserved a warning before delving into this chapter), this has quickly ventured into some borderline ridiculous territory (Tom on Felix lol). I set out to be super tropey and basically write all the dumb but fun stuff, and I feel like this chapter is literally just that. There are serious, feelings-inducing fics out there that I would recommend so highly, and this is certainly not gonna be one of them, so I just wanna make sure I'm clear about that haha. 
> 
> Next chapter is the one that I've been waiting to write since the beginning. It shall feature a smol time jump, the much awaited (by literally just me) Slug Party, and a shift in Professor Granger and Tom's dynamic ;). 
> 
> I would love to hear what you guys thought of this chapter!!! 
> 
> For those following Renatus as well (love you!) I am SO SORRY about the long wait. I am about to become a bit busy life-wise, but in general I reckon I will try to get the next chapter of this out, and then switch back to Renatus.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thank you for reading!!
> 
> I am actually super nervous to publish something that isn't Renatus and I am not positive I've managed to pull it off. As always, I would love to hear about your thoughts/feelings/theories, and, most of all, whether you'd be interested in reading more!


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